by Gregg Loomis
The last thought startled him. It had come from nowhere, certainly not from his past. He was objective enough to realize the inconsistency. Perhaps, after ninety years, he had seen enough death, enough brutality. Perhaps his last act might be one of kindness.
Perhaps.
CHAPTER 48
472 Lafayette Drive
10:32 A.M. Local Time
GURT WAS DOING SOMETHING IN THE kitchen when Lang walked in. The wideness of her eyes told Lang she had not heard him pull into the garage or greet Manfred, who had been playing with Grumps outside. Wagner booming from the sound system was the likely reason.
"A surprise." She had to shout above the music. "You are not going to the office?"
He shook his head and stepped over to the cabinet to lower the volume of the Valkyries' flight. "Wanted to talk to you first, ask your opinion. If your lover was coming over, he'll have to wait."
Gurt tossed a rag into the sink. "I have had as many lovers as times you have wanted my opinion before you act. You ask my advice only after you are in a mess. What is now different?"
Lang sat at the kitchen table, a disk of glass supported by wrought-iron frame and legs. "The difference is this time we have a choice as to whether we'll get involved. Before, someone was out to get us."
Gurt smiled, regarding him the same way she looked at Manfred when the child came up with a particularly startling bit of misinformation. "'We'? 'Us'? It was you someone was trying to eliminate and I who chose to try and help."
"Yeah, I can understand why you see it that way."
She held up a cup and he shook his head. Filling it from the Mr. Coffee for herself, she sat across the glass. "Now you want to help Paige and Wynton get back their son, no?"
Not even bothering to wonder how Gurt had read him as easily as the morning's newspaper, Lang leaned forward, taking one of her hands in his. "Let me tell you what we learned this morning."
When he finished a recount of his time at FBI headquarters, he said, "If it were Manfred that had been grabbed . . ."
Over the rim of the cup, Gurt's eyes were locked onto his. "But it is not so. Whatever influ . . . , er . . ."
"Influence."
"Whatever influence you may have with the authorities or people like Miles, yes, use it."
"But?"
She set the cup down, withdrawing her hand from his. "But you think of going after the kidnappers yourself, perhaps even to Germany, no?"
"It had entered my mind."
Gurt's gaze left his, scanning the wall behind him. "You made a promise."
"That's why we're having this conversation."
She absently reached for her purse under the table, remembered she had quit smoking, and then clasped her hands in her lap. "Perhaps you can help without leaving the country."
"I can try. But if not?"
"We will jump off that bridge when we come to it. Is there anything I can do, anything that does no chance of making Manfred an orphan?"
Lang thought about that for a moment. "As a matter of fact, yeah, there is."
He began to explain.
CHAPTER 49
Inman Park
Thirty Minutes Later
GURT PULLED UP IN FRONT OF the cottage with the scabrous peeling pale yellow paint. The sign in front, announcing the benefits of hypnotism, confirmed she had come to the right place, the office of I. J. Balisha. She sat in the car for a full minute, absorbing the house's surroundings. As far as she could see, homes had been recently renovated, yards neatly kept, paint touched up. This one was the poor relative at the family reunion.
Getting out of the car, she mounted the three steps to the porch with caution. A number of boards were either missing or obviously loose. She thought she saw motion behind the curtained windows before she rang the bell.
"Yes?"
She was looking at a tall, dark man in a jacket that reached his knees. "Dr. Balisha?"
He swung the door open, "I am he. How may I be of service to you?"
She noted his nervous glance up and down the street. Either Dr. Balisha was anticipating unwanted company or he wasn't eager for his neighbors to see what was going on.
The darkness of the interior and a smell she couldn't quite place tempted Gurt to conduct her business here on the front porch, but she said, "May I come in?"
Her answer was a brilliant smile and a sweeping bow, "But of course."
The man was as oily as your average change and lube shop. Instinct made Gurt keep close to the wall as he led her down a dim corridor. Somewhere in the background was music, sort of. Tinkling bells, short notes on a flute, and a wailing woman's voice. The sound and the odor suddenly became familiar: she had experienced both in the Indian restaurant where Lang occasionally succeeded getting her to try some gastronomic masochism.
The man stopped, motioning her into a room. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the light, or rather the lack thereof. An old-fashioned oil lamp had been converted to electricity but served more to create shadows than provide illumination. A table or desk sat in front of what could be a couch. The furniture floated on a sea of abstract designs on a hemp and wool reproduction of a Persian rug. The four frames on the walls did not hold the usual diplomas and licenses but illustrations from The Karma Sutra, sex acts far more imaginative than the most "adult" magazines.
For a moment, Gurt wondered exactly what sort of business Dr. Balisha conducted in addition to hypnotism.
He closed the door behind him. There was no mistaking the click of the automatic lock.
He slid behind the desk and sat, still smiling. "You have the advantage of me, madam. You know my name but . . ."
Gurt remained standing. She knew the psychological advantage of height advantage when questioning someone. "Gurt Fuchs."
He waited for her to continue until it was clear she was not going to. "What may I do for you, Ms. Fuchs?"
"A few days, perhaps a week ago, you hypnotized a child. A woman named Marcie Rollens brought him here."
He made a steeple of slender and bejeweled fingers. "I hypnotize many people, including children. The process is helpful in treating behavior patterns, academic difficulties, and, shall we say, other problems."
The dark face remained impassive if slightly curious, without stress. Gurt had interrogated spies, defectors, even some of the Agency's own employees. Either this man had nothing to hide or he had surprising control of his emotions.
"How did Ms. Rollens contact you?"
Balisha stared at her for a moment as though not quite sure what she meant before pointing to a telephone in front of him. "By phone as do most of my clients."
Evasive or overly literal?
"How did she know how to do that?"
Again, the broad smile as he reached under the desk and produced a phone book. He opened it to a quarter-page ad. "I must assume she . . . what do you say? Let her fingers do the walking?"
He smiled even wider at his joke.
"You did not know Ms. Rollens before she called to bring the child?"
The smile vanished. "No, but I have had many calls since her newspaper article. I do not understand the purpose of your questions."
Gurt leaned forward. "The child, Wynn-Three, he's called, was kidnapped."
Gurt was looking at true astonishment or a consummate actor.
"Kidnapped? Who . . . ? Surely you don't think I . . . ?"
Gurt let him stammer a moment or two. Then, "I don't think anything. How did you know to take him back to the life where he was a prisoner?"
Balisha looked at her blankly. "I did not know at all. In these cases, you take the subject back to childhood, then birth and then beyond."
"You have done this before?"
"I had many subjects who remembered a life before the current one. Why are you asking me these questions?"
"Did Marcie Rollens ask you to regress the child?"
Balisha crossed his arms and shook his head. "You are not the police. I will not be questioned li
ke a criminal."
Gurt gave the room an obvious glance. "I see no licenses, no diplomas. I think perhaps the authorities would like to know you charge for hypnotizing people."
Pure bluff. She had no idea if hypnotists needed licensing.
Apparently, they did.
Balisha stood and came around the table, his face only inches from hers. She could smell the curry on his breath. "You will regret any trouble . . ."
He got no further. The words were choked off by Gurt's fist as it tightened the collar of his jacket, squeezing his throat closed. At the same time, she jerked him forward, his hands futilely trying to pry hers loose. His natural reaction was to resist by pulling back. Using his superior weight against him, a single push backwards sent him stumbling against the desk.
Without loosening her grasp, Gurt put her face within inches of his. "And you will regret ever threatening me again." She gave the fabric of his jacket another twist, making his eyes bulge as he struggled to breathe. "Do you understand?"
He nodded feebly.
Gurt let go and the man slowly straightened up, his hand to his neck as he inhaled loudly.
"Now, once more, did Marcie Rollens ask you to regress the child?"
He was rubbing his throat and coughing. "Yes, yes! She said he would remember a previous life! How would I know unless she told me? Now go!"
Twenty minutes later, Gurt was sitting in their den in a chair across from Lang. Wynton and Paige looked at her anxiously from a leather sofa as she finished recounting her visit to the hypnotist.
"I do not believe the man knows any more than he told me."
Lang stood, went to the stone fireplace that divided the room from the dining room, and added a log to the stuttering flames. "I tend to agree. If he were part of the kidnapping, I doubt he'd hang around."
"I didn't know we suspected doctor whatever his name is," Wynton said.
Lang shrugged. "We didn't but there's no point in not covering every possibility."
As a lawyer experienced in defending product liability cases, Wynton was accustomed to pointing the finger of liability in as many directions as possible to deflect it from his client. Sometimes his theories were actually meritorious rather than distracting to the jury. He understood covering every possibility. "Okay, now what?"
Instead of an answer, Lang's cell phone chirped.
He glanced at the screen and said, "Yes, Sara?"
A few seconds later he snapped the phone shut. "Sorry, but I need to go by my office, tend to business."
Wynton watched him leave, wondering what it would be like to have a practice that let you come and go as you pleased.
CHAPTER 50
Law Office of Langford Reilly
Peachtree Center
227 Peachtree Street
Atlanta
Forty Minutes Later
"KING CON" WAS THE NAME SARA and Lang had given Phillip Hall. He was waiting in the reception area when Lang walked in the door of the small office suite. Sara was pointedly occupying herself with Lang's expenses to be reimbursed by the Foundation, a task she normally undertook only at his insistence. As usual, the accused swindler was immaculately dressed: English herringbone tweed suit, Hermès tie, silk shirt, glossy Italian wingtips. A camel-colored cashmere overcoat hung from the brass coat rack.
Phillip Hall stood, the usual warm smile on his face, hand extended. "I appreciate your taking the time to see me."
Lang tossed his own overcoat toward one of the quartet of Martha Washington chairs gathered around a magazine-laden coffee table and motioned him into his office. "That's what I'm in business for."
Inside, Lang shut the door and slid into his desk chair, taking a moment to thumb through a stack of pink message slips. "And what might I do for you today?"
Hall eyed one of the two wingback client chairs as though questioning its fitness as a seat before folding into it. "I was wondering if you had contacted the U.S. Attorney yet."
Lang frowned. "I thought I made it clear: I don't represent you until the retainer is paid."
Hall used his most reasonable voice. "And I thought I told you the check will be good in a day or two. Surely you can trust me that long. If it doesn't, you can always withdraw."
The list of the man's victims obviously included members of the bar. Once a lawyer was counsel of record, most judges, particularly federal ones, were reluctant to subject their calendars to the delay usually involved in a change of attorneys. Even more reason to get paid up front.
On the other hand, a hundred-thousand-dollar fee would be a nice donation to Manfred's education fund.
With the predatory instinct of all bunko artists, King Con sensed indecision. "You'll have your funds by next week."
In his first years of practice, Lang had had to take pretty much whatever business walked in the door. That had included a paperhanger, bad check writer, who was an attractive young woman. By flirtation, charm, and the fact that Lang's office rent was due, she convinced him to accompany her to her preliminary hearing for five hundred dollars. Paid by check. Not only did the hearing go badly but the check bounced higher than a rubber ball. It was the first and last time Lang had represented anyone on what amounted to credit. He had no aversion to occasionally taking up the cause of the indigent, but he insisted on making the choice himself, not being stuck with a nonpaying client.
This was particularly true where the potential client seemed affluent. The U.S. Attorney's Office had a nasty tendency to slip Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization, or RICO, charges into indictments containing multiple counts involving large sums of money. The RICO statutes, originally enacted to combat organized crime, provided for the forfeiture of ill-gotten gains from whomever was in possession of the money. Like so much well-intentioned legislation, the RICO Act was applied by government for purposes that bore no resemblance to the original intent of the lawmakers. In this case, conceivably, it could be extended to include sums paid for attorney's fees. At least, the contention had been made if not upheld.
The prospect of having to litigate the issue of entitlement to fees earned hung over the head of every high-priced criminal lawyer who defended a white-collar client in federal court. It was a serious weapon in the hands of the prosecution, a device to discourage the most skilled advocates from taking high-profile cases, a process directed toward limiting the defense to less-skilled attorneys.
All of this went through Lang's mind before he reached into a desk drawer and produced Hall's check for a hundred thousand dollars. He stood, extending it.
"Tell you what, Mr. Hall: take this and bring me one certified. Better yet, make it a bank draft. I'll be on the case like a politician on a campaign contribution as soon as I have bank funds."
Hall's reaction to the check reminded Lang of one of the old films showing Dracula's recoil from a crucifix. He could almost hear him hiss. "You really can't do that, can you, Mr. Reilly? I mean, I have rights. You agreed to represent me, now you're reneging. I'm sure the Bar Association won't permit it."
Lang placed the check on the far side of the desk, reached into another drawer, and produced a book. He dropped that, too, on the far side of the desk. "Bar directory. You'll find the Bar Association's phone number on one of the first few pages. Feel free to call from here if you like."
"I suppose lawyers, like thieves, stick together," Hall sneered.
"You'd know more about thieves than I would," Lang retorted. "But I will give you a bit of free legal advice: you're not going to get competent counsel with worthless checks, believe me."
"But you agreed to represent me." Hall was now pleading.
The true test of the sociopath: from what both men knew the other recognized as a lie, to righteous indignation to threatening to supplicating, turning on a psychological dime. It was a trait shared by a number of Lang's clients.
Lang shook his head. "I agreed to represent you for a hundred grand, and I stand by that. You come up with the money and I'll provide the representation."
"I told you I'd have it."
"When you do, we can begin. Not before."
"So, you're basically saying you don't trust me."
Currently more than fifty counts of mortgage fraud plus money laundering, a long history of scams—and the man was accusing Lang of not trusting him? It took an effort not to chuckle.
"I'm saying this is a cash-and-carry-only business."
Hall got to his feet. "I can see I will need to consult other counsel. Not everyone can turn down a hundred thousand dollars."
Lang had learned that the figure really didn't matter until the money was reduced to possession. But he said, "I'll manage somehow. Don't forget your coat."
Lang was standing by Sara's desk as Hall stamped angrily out of the suite.
"Good riddance!" she muttered as soon as the door closed.
Lang chuckled. "Don't count on it. Man's got more brass than your average doorknob."
"You think he'll be back?"
"Count on it. Set your watch to about two minutes past indictment."
CHAPTER 51
Gasthaus Schelling
Herrengasse 29
Rothenburg ob den Tauber
Germany
5:30 P.M. Local Time
SIX TIME ZONES TO THE EAST, Friedrich Gratz was also in a small suite of rooms. He and two other men were gathered around the bed on which a small boy lay curled into fetal position. The child, eyes red from crying, whimpered.
"He is not responding," Dr. Heim said.
Gratz's partner-in-crime, Otto Dortmann, alias Johann Schect, leaned over the bed for a better view. "Have you no drugs that would relax him, make it easier to hypnotize him?"
The physician shook his head. "Such drugs would cloud his mental state, make it even more difficult to reach the subconscious."
"Then what do you propose?" Gratz wanted to know.
Propose? Heim would propose these two mad men go back to the lunatic asylum or wherever they had come from and take the child with them. He would propose they forget they had ever met the elderly doctor.