Remember Me, Irene ik-4

by Jan Burke

  I thought about Nadine Preston and couldn’t help but wonder how those men could sleep at night. I looked back at her transcripts and registration information. She did fine as an undergrad. She was a less than spectacular graduate student. The earliest registration information listed her parents as the persons to contact in case of emergency. According to the computer file, they lived in Michigan. I looked at later forms. The emergency contact field was left blank.

  Parents deceased, Keene had said. Estranged from her brother. Did he still wonder about his sister?

  At the thought of brothers and sisters, I heard a car pull up. Jerry’s red Porsche. Disappointingly typical, I thought. Great car, but it had to be the midlife crisis car of choice, an aging philanderer’s notion of babe bait. Jerry really must have felt some affection for Lisa if he let her borrow this car. Wondered what he’d say if he knew she was parking it in this part of town.

  She waved and reached in the car, pulling a knapsack from the passenger seat. She put the knapsack on her shoulders and locked the car. She was dressed casually again, wearing jeans, a sweater, and running shoes. She looked very young to me. I was about to remind myself once again not to treat her as a child, when I drew close enough to see her face. It was tense and swollen from crying. I hurriedly opened the gate and she came into my arms, holding on to me, literally crying on my shoulder. I gave her an awkward hug — keys, flashlight, and envelopes not leaving my paws free.

  “Lisa, Lisa,” I said softly. “What’s wrong, honey?”

  She raised her head and rubbed her palm against her eyes, saying, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. This has been such a rotten week! My whole life is falling apart. Why did my father have to be such an asshole?”

  “Come on, let’s go inside. We’ll hunt down a clean patch of floor and sit down and talk.”

  “Thanks. I knew you’d see me. You’re so loyal to your friends, aren’t you?”

  I glanced up toward the top of the hotel. “Not always,” I said, “but I’m glad I can be here for you.”

  She followed my glance and said, “Oh, I love these old buildings! I’ll bet the view from the top of this one is fantastic.”

  “Probably not what it once was, but it’s not bad. The top floor has a lot of windows facing the ocean, and if you sit up there in the right spot, you can see the water.”

  “Can we go up there?”

  I hesitated. I had planned to go up there anyway, but only after I had talked with her. But other than having to climb the stairs twice, I couldn’t think of a reason not to take her there. Nothing was out where she’d see it.

  “I’m sorry, that was inconsiderate of me,” she said. “If you don’t think you can handle the stairs…”

  “I can handle them,” I said quickly. But when I looked at her now, she was smiling mischievously. I sighed. “You’re baiting me, Lisa.”

  She laughed. “Yes. But I really do want to see the view.”

  IN THE LOBBY, she became introspective, slowly walking past the fountain, mosaic, and murals, quietly admiring our heavenly hosts. Keene’s tale too fresh in my mind, I was anxious to move on. We began the trip upstairs.

  As we reached the fourth-floor landing, the jingle of keys in my purse reminded me that the front door was closed, but unlocked, and the gate was wide open. I tried to tell myself that we wouldn’t be upstairs very long, but even to my own ears, it sounded like an excuse whose parents were claustrophobia and laziness. I couldn’t bring myself to risk vandalism to all the hard work done by Keene’s kids, and headed down to the lobby.

  Lisa could have waited in the stairwell, but she came along as I secured the gate and the front door, and made no complaint as we started up the stairs again. We didn’t talk much on the way up, but by the time we came to the room at the top, she seemed less tense. She looked around with curiosity, marveled at the green glass doors, the carved bar, the view. “You would never expect this to be up here, would you?” she said.

  I tucked the envelopes, my purse, and the flashlight on a shelf beneath the bar. I walked over to the windows where I now believed Lucas had spent at least part of one late rainy night. Ben’s suicide had made headlines that morning. Did Lucas sit here wondering if he had been in some way responsible for the banker’s death? On a clear day, Catalina would have been visible from this place. But the promised rain clouds were slowly rolling in, and you could barely see the oil islands, let alone any place beyond the breakwater. I wondered if the clouds would make it darker sooner.

  Behind me, I could hear her shoes on the wooden floor as she explored the room. She walked over to the crate, turned her head to one side, and said, “What are you really doing here?”

  Part of the truth wouldn’t hurt, I decided. “Lucas died in this hotel. I guess I wanted to see what he saw before he died.”

  Her face grew solemn. She nodded. “You’ve reminded me of why I want to see you.” She sighed deeply, moved the crate a little, and sat on it. She pulled off the backpack, opened it, and pulled out a folder.

  “This was in a box in the attic,” she said, and handed it to me.

  “What is it?”

  “Take a look.”

  I opened the folder. Surveys. Typewritten pages — just like the ones I had been shown by Edison Burrows. I held them up to the light, looked at them more closely. Lucas’s pages.

  “Do you know what they are?” I asked.

  “They are proof of Andre’s dishonesty,” she said.

  “How do they prove it?” I asked, wanting to know what she knew and what she had just guessed at.

  “They were in a box labeled ‘Monroe.’ I was trying to move some boxes, to find some old books I had stored up there. I found a box full of raw data and typewritten notes and statistical calculations. It’s the type of thing I work with all the time, of course — I do almost all of Barton’s demographics work. So I was curious. And then the significance of the name on the box struck me. I thought about the fact that Lucas Monroe used to work for Andre.”

  “You know that Andre was on Lucas’s thesis committee, Lisa. And Lucas did work for him on the redevelopment study. Wouldn’t it be natural for him to have Lucas’s data?”

  “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  It took me aback.

  “I understand,” she said. “Lucas is dead, although I thought that was from a heart attack. And Roberta — all for nothing!”

  “What do you mean?”

  She bit her lower lip, then said, “You keep treating me like someone who can’t understand the simplest things. Becky told me when I went to the hospital. Said that someone broke into Roberta’s office and clubbed her on the back of the head, but that nothing was missing from the office.”

  “Nothing was missing? I hadn’t heard that,” I said. “I would imagine that would be hard to determine without Roberta’s help.”

  “I meant, no equipment or anything obvious. At least, that’s what Becky said.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I don’t know how he’s managing it from a hospital bed, but I know Andre is behind this. I know it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Andre faked data for his first redevelopment study. I’m close to proving it. I thought you’d want the story. I thought I could come to you, and you would see the importance of this, the significance, and Andre and his circle of friends could be stopped.”

  “You can prove he faked the statistics?”

  “A few key papers are missing. I’m still looking through the things Andre has hidden in the closet, but they don’t seem to be there. But I’ll find them. I’m determined to. And I can tell you this much already: Andre is an academic fraud. His career as a scholar is built on a foundation of lies that started with this study. He’s a phony.”

  “He’s your father.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You don’t care about him, do you? You really don’t.”

  “Why should I?”

  “H
e paid the bills, if nothing else.”

  “Ill-gotten gains.”

  “He gave you a love of sociology.”

  “His love of it is a fake! It’s as fake as the rest of him. It’s a field that studies human society, relationships, mores — what does he know about any of those things?”

  “Enough to win the esteem of his colleagues. Enough to give you a big boost in your own career.”

  “You defend him again!”

  I thought back to the conversation I’d had with Keene not an hour before. I looked out of the window, to the sky and sea. Muted gray. Not this.

  “No, I do not defend him. I could use your help. I just don’t want you to give it thoughtlessly. I couldn’t forgive myself for taking advantage of your anger toward him, no matter how easy it would make my job. You mean too much to me, Lisa.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “I believe you. I swear to you, Irene, this isn’t something I take lightly. I want you to know that. This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

  I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. I still didn’t feel right about allowing her to help me bring down her own father, but I was pretty sure my apprehensions went back to treating Lisa as a child. Her relationship with her father wasn’t typical. I had to keep that in mind.

  “Then I’ll say yes, I could use your help,” I told her. “Any papers you can get to me — without endangering yourself — will help. And I’ll admit that I was just thinking that I need a stats expert to help me understand what I’m looking at.”

  “Great! I was hoping you’d trust me. I’ll keep looking for those missing pages.”

  “They may be right here,” I admitted.

  “What?”

  “You asked why I’m here. I’m looking for the missing pages.”

  She looked around the room. “Here?”

  “Lucas left a message of sorts for me. This bar supposedly has some kind of secret panel in it. Something left over from Prohibition days.”

  Her eyes lit up. “I love it! Secret panels! Can I help you try to find it?”

  “Be my guest.”

  We went to work on the bar. We examined it from every angle we could get to. We pushed, we prodded. It started to get dark. I wanted to leave, Lisa was determined to find the panel.

  “Frank will be worried about me,” I said, turning on the flashlight. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Shhh!” she said. “Did you just hear something?”

  I stood stock-still.

  We listened.

  “I guess not,” she said.

  Very clearly, at that moment, came the sound of the stairwell door slamming shut.

  “I know you’re in there!” boomed the voice of a man sometimes known as Holler, sometimes known as John Jones.

  Two Toes knew we were in there.

  36

  I TURNED OFF THE FLASHLIGHT, reached for the top of Lisa’s head, and forced her to duck behind the bar with me. We were in the space behind the bar, where a bartender would stand. There was enough light for me to see Lisa’s face, pale and worried. What had possessed me to tell her anything about the panel, to put her in this kind of danger?

  “I know you’re in heee-re,” he sang, as a child does when about to win a round of hide-and-seek. “I’m going to count to ten, and then I’m going to come and get yoooo-u!”

  I handed the flashlight to Lisa. I reached for my purse and opened it.

  “One.”

  I found a piece of paper.

  “Two.”

  A pen.

  “Three.”

  Wrote, “I’ll distract him.”

  “Four.”

  Wrote, “Get help.”

  “Five.”

  Reached for the keys to the gate, holding them together to keep them quiet.

  “Six.”

  Put them in her hand.

  “Seven.”

  Looked into her faced, saw her nod.

  “Eight.”

  Mouthed the word “Ready?”

  “Nine.”

  The fucking beeper went off.

  I stood up like I had been shot out of a cannon.

  “It’s my guardian angel!” I shouted, running from the bar, veering toward him, beeper beeping.

  HE COVERED HIS EARS with his hands and ran from me, heading for the other side of the room. Laughing.

  I heard the glass door open, but didn’t turn toward it, not wanting his attention on Lisa. The beeper stopped beeping. I whooped and hollered and gave the best imitation of a Tarzan cry I could, trying to cover any other sounds she might make. He loved it. He repeated them, laughing, then turned and ran toward me.

  What the hell was I going to do now?

  I started running again. We were running in big circles over the buckled floor. He was enjoying the hell out of himself. I was terrified, but I didn’t dare head for the door yet — I had to give her time. I dodged and weaved in the darkening room.

  And tripped over Lisa’s backpack, then the crate, landing flat on my face.

  It knocked the wind out of me, sent the beeper skittering in front of me. He caught up to me in one stride. I felt his big hands grab my shoulders, lift me. He set me on my feet, turned me toward him — all as if I didn’t weight more than a doll.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Sure? You fell down.”

  No kidding, I thought, my knees, shins, palms, and chin smarting. “I’m okay,” I said.

  “I’m going to let go now,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t fall down again.”

  “I won’t.”

  He took two steps away from me and pointed at me. “That’s what you get for roughhousing!”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  He stared at me. I thought of Joshua Burrows, ribs kicked in, face bruised. I looked at the hulking figure in front of me. Two Toes could do that much damage to someone in about thirty seconds flat. Had he hurt Roberta, too?

  I swallowed hard.

  How long would it take Lisa to get out of the building?

  I was near the windows. I took my gaze from him just long enough to glance down at the street. The Porsche was still parked at the curb.

  “She’s still here,” he said.

  I looked back to see him calmly picking up my beeper from the floor. Shit. He knew I wasn’t alone.

  “You were looking for the treasure,” he said, pushing on the buttons of the beeper.

  I didn’t answer.

  He looked up at me. “Yes, you were,” he chided, as if I had denied it aloud. “You were looking in the altar for the treasure. Come here.”

  I didn’t move. He grabbed my hand and yanked me along toward the bar. He stopped in front of it, but he kept hold of my hand.

  “As your guardian angel, I will lead you in the ways of righteousness. I know all the secrets of the altar.”

  Right at that moment, I really didn’t care about what was hidden in the bar. But he pulled me over to it, back into the bartender’s working space. He saw my purse and stuffed the beeper inside it, freeing his hand. He grabbed the purse and put it on his shoulder. His now, I supposed. I glanced around, but couldn’t see the manila envelope. Lisa must have taken it with her. I prayed she’d figure out who to give the papers to if I ended up with my skull bashed in or worse.

  He looked up at the back of the bar, its intricate carvings and mirrored panels, and smiled. “You have to rub them,” he said. “I watched him all the time.”

  He took my other hand, guided both hands toward a panel on our left. He placed each hand on one of the wings of two cherubs which graced the sides of one panel of the mirror. I tried not to think about the smell of his breath over my shoulder. It was one of several sharp, distinctive fragrances emanating from him. The man was a riot of olfactory stimulants.

  Our darkened reflections stared back at me from a mirror. Mine, scared. His, pleased.

  “Both at the sa
me time or it won’t work,” he said. He gently curved his fingers over mine, moved our hands over the wings simultaneously. I felt the wings move backward. They rolled on some sort of ball-and-socket joint. I heard a creaking noise.

  “Now forward, and back again,” he said.

  We moved the wings again, making the angels “fly.”

  Another creaking noise, and this time, I could see that the mirror had come forward as the wings went back.

  We repeated the motion with the wings, and now the mirror was far enough forward to give me a clear view of what lay behind it: a lever.

  “Pull it down! Pull it down!” Two Toes said excitedly, letting go of my hands.

  I did. The entire section beside the mirror swung out, away from the back of the bar. He laughed and pulled it all the way open. There was a compartment beneath it.

  “I can’t see what’s in there,” I said, curiosity temporarily overcoming all other considerations.

  Two Toes fumbled in his jacket and produced a match. He struck it and its flame softly illuminated the area where we stood. He briefly held it over the compartment and I saw what was hidden there.

  Nothing.

  “It’s empty!”

  “Shhh!” he said, clamping a dirty hand over my mouth. He dragged me close to him, put a big arm around my waist, pinning my arms. He straightened and my feet lifted from the ground. He rounded to the back of the bar, pulled on another cherub as he leaned a knee against a smooth panel there. It gave, moved noiselessly, turning like a revolving door, and we were suddenly in absolute darkness.

  I tried to struggle, but he tightened his grip on my waist and jaw until I stopped. There was nothing but darkness and his scent mixed with that of dust and old wood. At first I thought we were in some sort of closet compartment in the old bar, but we began moving. He was carrying me down a set of stairs, it seemed. The bar must have covered some passageway, probably a means of getting booze in and out during its speakeasy days.