Touch of the White Tiger

by Julie Beard

  “Marco,” I said as the safety belts released me, “why are we here?”

  He reached over and took my hand, squeezing hard, a world of regret and anger swirling in his deep eyes. “It’s time we stopped the game.”

  “Is that what this has been? A game?”

  “There are things you need to know, Angel, and you need to hear them from the original source.”

  “Why?” I inquired in a small voice. “I’d rather hear it from you. Why can’t you tell me?”

  His handsome mouth creased with an empathetic smile. “Because you’d never believe me.”

  I nodded, swallowing my trepidation, and we walked hand-in-hand to Gorky’s front door. It was déjà vu all over again. I was glad to have Marco at my side this time. He may be a bad guy, but he ranked low on the bad-guy scale. I guess even evil could be relative.

  As the housekeeper led us down the circuitous hallway toward the back of the house, I only peripherally noticed the opulent rooms we passed, each decorated in different styles that spanned the centuries—a Greco-Roman indoor swimming pool room, a Victorian sitting room, a jungle atrium, and an ultramodern home theater, to name a few.

  Blood pounded in my ears so loudly I thought I was having a stroke. But I was too young and fit for that. Or was I? Scientists had proved a person could die from a broken heart. Could too many unpleasant truths congeal like a clot in the brain and kill you on the spot?

  My morose ruminations came to a halt when we entered the upper level of Gorky’s spectacular study, which stretched across the back of the house, the room for which the house had been named. Designed in a style reminiscent of famed twentieth-century architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it loomed over the lake in triangular fashion, with steel beams jutting out at a slight angle from the floor to the ceiling, plated in fantastic sheets of glass. When I briefly faced the lake, I felt as if I could just step through the glass and walk on water.

  I turned and saw that Marco had joined Gorky on the sunken main floor by a fireplace made of giant stone slabs. The floor, too, was an uneven but intriguing patchwork of polished, natural stone. Being here was like being in nature and being indoors at the same time.

  In fact, nature was all too close. I glanced anxiously at the open stairwell on the far side of the room. You could actually walk down a short flight of stairs, open a door and dive into oceanic Lake Michigan. Gorky had apparently created this unusual feature to pay homage to Wright. The architect’s unsurpassed masterpiece, named Falling Water, had been built over a Pennsylvania waterfall and included a watery back exit.

  “We’ll talk about that in a moment,” Gorky said sternly to Marco, who was so in his face I feared Gorky might knife him at any moment.

  “No, damn you, tell her now!” Marco insisted.

  Gorky disengaged without reply and stepped toward me, assuming a host’s magnanimous smile. Dressed in sleek white silk pants and a collarless white silk shirt, with silver chest hair peaking out, he looked almost elegant. “Angel moy, please come join us. I have espresso waiting.”

  If he’d said vodka, I would have refused. But espresso was my lifeblood, and I needed to be as clearheaded as possible, so I took the three short steps to the sunken circular main floor and accepted the minuscule coffee cup Gorky offered.

  “Thank you,” I said, but didn’t look at him. I glanced at Marco, who watched me carefully. A thought suddenly occurred to me. “This isn’t poisoned, is it?”

  Why I expected a straight answer, I didn’t know. But I trusted Marco’s judgment, and he helped himself to his waiting coffee, albeit unenthusiastically.

  “Dorogaya moya,” Gorky admonished, putting a hand over his heart and sinking down into a Stickley lounge chair as if he was too weak to stand. “You wound me. Why would I poison you?”

  The shock of the explosion was beginning to wear off and my hand began to shake, rattling my espresso cup and saucer as if an earthquake had struck. I gripped the saucer with my other hand and tossed the acrid caffeine essence to the back of my throat, swallowing all at once, then put the china on a side table.

  Fortified, I widened my stance, squaring off for an honest confrontation.

  “Why would you poison me?” I repeated, anger replacing trepidation. “Lots of reasons. Chief among them, however, is the fact that you just tried to kill me and Marco in an explosion at the Capone museum. But you failed. I knew all along I was the next victim in your cold-blooded plot, Gorky, but I didn’t know how far you would go to do me in.”

  Gorky rubbed his chin with an open palm, as if testing to see if he needed another shave. Then he rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and regarded me seriously. “You have a right to be upset. I was furious when Marco called and said you were at the museum. I never intended to hurt you, nor was I responsible for that explosion.”

  “I suppose you’re going to try to tell me it was Marco’s fault. He was there, Gorky, he wouldn’t have risked blowing himself up. Someone called us both, somehow managing to mimic our voices, and directed us to what was supposed to be a last, deadly rendezvous.”

  He grimaced, his silver, broom mustache moving beneath his prominent nose. “You are quite correct. It was not Marik.”

  “Then who was it?” Marco put down his coffee cup with a thud on the mantel. “We want evidence. Names. It’s time to stop this deadly game of craps.”

  Gorky looked back and forth between us, weighing consequences only someone from his high altitude could reckon. Then he called for Alexia and told her it was time for their restricted guest to make his entrance.

  Marco and I exchanged wary glances. Restricted guest? A prisoner?

  My speculations came to a screeching halt when two R.M.O. thugs entered the upper level pushing in a rectangular container on rollers, stopping in front of the three steps to the lower level.

  “Step aside,” Gorky ordered his men and they made themselves scarce.

  The container, roughly three feet squared in width and five-feet tall was made of vertical metal bars, like an antiquated animal cage at the zoo. Except this one contained a man.

  “Lieutenant Townsend,” I said. It was more a horrified whisper. I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

  “Marco,” Townsend said after spotting us. He reached a hand through the bars. “Help me! He’s going to kill me. Get me out of here.”

  “Townsend,” was all Marco could manage in reply, the throaty word rife with shock and dismay.

  Townsend’s thinning gray hair, usually combed neatly back, sprouted in limp tufts. His long, gray face was smudged with dirt and blood. His black, military-esque Q.E.D. uniform was in tatters. He tried to stand, but couldn’t. And though he supposedly could feel no emotions, I thought I recognized humiliation and fear in his once-placid, now darting gray eyes. Surely the surgeons had not been unable to extract Townsend’s survival instincts.

  “Help me, Detective,” he pleaded in a still commanding voice. “Save me from this madman.”

  “This man,” Gorky said, rising to his full six-feet-four height, repeating for dramatic emphasis, “this man is the one who is responsible for the deaths of your fellow retributionists, Angel.”

  “That’s a lie!” Townsend shouted, more for emphasis than out of anger. “Don’t listen to him, Marco. He’ll say anything to avoid responsibility for his own heinous crimes.”

  I looked at Marco. His easygoing confidence had given way to a terrible struggle between truth and lies, law and disorder. His handsome face was now a mask of grim hatred, for whom I couldn’t tell.

  “I could say the same thing,” Gorky said, ambling toward the cage, stopping without climbing the stairs. He motioned toward Townsend like a docent at the zoo. “The lieutenant will say anything to avoid his responsibility for the murders of Roy Leibman, Victor Alvarez, Getty Bellows…and what would have been the murder of Angel Baker and Riccuccio Marco, if fate hadn’t intervened. When I heard about the explosion, just before you called, Marik, I had my men capture this piece of sh
it. He arrived here just before you did.”

  Marco turned to Gorky like a man preparing for a duel at dawn. “Explain,” he ordered.

  “Consider,” Gorky said, leaning on the upper-level railing, “that Townsend was at both murder scenes.”

  “He’s a cop!” Marco shot back.

  “No, he’s Q.E.D. There’s a difference. They aren’t usually the first responders. Am I wrong?”

  Marco’s grudging silence was answer enough.

  “I have been following the investigations in the news,” Gorky said, leisurely folding his powerful arms over his chest.

  I doubted he needed to watch the news to get the inside story on any criminal investigation, but kept the thought to myself.

  “Who else would have powerful enough connections to steal darling Angel’s gun from a bank safety deposit box?” Gorky said with disingenuous dismay. “Who else would be powerful enough to change her phone records?”

  “You,” I said.

  He held out his hands in a gesture of abject innocence. “Yes, Angel moy, but why would I do it? I already told you I have the greatest respect for your mother, and I am grateful to you for finding the Maltese Falcon. What possible motive would I have?”

  “You don’t like retributionists hassling your assassins and sgarristas on the street.”

  He nodded and wagged a finger at me. “You are right on that point. And that is why Lieutenant Townsend came to me and told me what he was going to do and asked me not to interfere. I agreed. But I determined that if he was going to kill Certified Retribution Specialists, he was not going to kill Angel Baker. And that is why I hired Vlad the Impaler, and that is why I set up the crew across from your apartment, to keep an eye on you and track your movements. To keep you safe.”

  He sat down again and folded his hands in his lap, smiling contentedly like Santa Claus after a long night of benevolent work on Christmas Eve.

  Marco and I looked at each other. Nothing that Gorky had said rang false. In unison, we turned our discerning gazes, now suspiciously, toward Townsend.

  Since he could not stand in the small cage, Townsend had been kneeling, and sank back on his heels in defeat.

  “Very well,” he said calmly, logically. “I will not try to deny it any longer.”

  “What?” I had so convinced myself that Gorky was responsible for the deaths of my friends that I almost couldn’t accept a confession at face value. It made no sense.

  “Why?” Marco asked Townsend. “Why in God’s name would you do such a thing?”

  “It seemed the logical thing to do,” Townsend said, regarding Marco calmly. “You yourself, Detective, wanted politicians to rein in the growing presence of Certified Retribution Specialists. You head the police committee lobbying on that issue, and with good reason. Retributionists are usurping the traditional role of law enforcement. They are not sanctioned by any official covenant or law. To allow such a force to exist will lead to social anarchy.”

  “You cold-blooded bastard!” I shouted.

  Ignoring me, he held Marco’s angry gaze. “But you and the politicians were inefficient. You listened to constituents who considered retributionists heroes. You allowed yourself to delay action, when clearly action needed to be taken.”

  “And so you took this matter on yourself?” Marco asked.

  “Q.E.D. decided it was in everyone’s best interest. Well-meaning cops are too influenced by emotional considerations. The police chief was afraid of a public backlash if the CRS movement was suddenly outlawed.”

  “So you just planned to murder us all, one after another?” I asked as calmly as I could. “Weren’t you worried about getting caught?”

  He allowed his steady gaze to slide my way. “No. We wanted the public to think that your kind had morphed from vigilante protectors and avengers into assassins. The timing was propitious, since Judge Gibson had recently and obligingly crossed over the legal line by giving you warrants to terminate repeat restraining order violators. It was not a hard leap of logic, even for an ignorant public, to assume that you might get carried away and start assassinating whomever you pleased. I concluded that if I staged a few more unwarranted assassinations, the tide of public opinion would turn against you, and the gutless politicians would finally take action to outlaw your profession.”

  “You’re good, Townsend,” Gorky remarked, bobbing his head in admiration. “Very good.”

  Marco gave him a scathing look over his shoulder. “Depends on your definition of good.” He walked closer to Townsend’s cage, staring at the lieutenant as if he was, indeed, a strange animal not seen on this continent. “What about right and wrong, Townsend? How could you possibly have logically justified murdering innocent people?”

  “That part was easy. Our society has always sanctioned killing for a good cause. It’s called war, whether it involves defending our country or freeing the oppressed. For wars, even religious fundamentalists are willing to abandon their God-given creeds against killing. So I did not have to wrestle long with morality to conclude that the death of a few retributionists was a small price to pay for civil order and the resurgence of the government-sanctified police force. Surely, Detective, even you can see the logic in that.”

  “No, I don’t. A death by any other name is death,” Marco growled. “And justify it as we may try, we’ll still have to answer to God for every life we take.”

  Townsend smiled wanly. “That doesn’t worry me, Detective. I’ve logically considered the matter of a divine being and concluded that there is none.”

  “Then you won’t have to say your prayers when I kill you,” Gorky said in a merry tone. “Boys, take him down to the lake.”

  The two thugs, who had been lingering in the doorway, came into the room and started to roll the cage toward the flight of internal stairs that led down to the surface of Lake Michigan.

  For one long moment, no one said a word. Townsend, Marco and I all seemed to realize in the same instant what Gorky was planning to do. He was going to drown Townsend by dumping the cage out of the door that opened to the lake. The cage would sink instantly.

  “You can’t get away with this,” Marco hissed, turning on Gorky. “Authorities will dredge the entire lake if they have to to find the head of Q.E.D. And when they do, you’ll go down, Gorky. I don’t care how many politicians you’ve bought, you won’t get a pass on this one.”

  Gorky smiled coyly. “Marik, you have no imagination. We will lower the cage into the lake until he drowns, then we will hoist him up, like a deep sea diver, extract the body and dump it somewhere else. No one will ever tie the crime to me. Townsend, you weren’t stupid enough to tell anyone else about your plot, were you?”

  The lieutenant, gripping the bars, tersely shook his head.

  “See?” Gorky said. “It’s a done deal.”

  “But we need a confession from Townsend in order to clear Angel of suspicion.”

  “Already done,” Gorky replied. “He signed it just before you arrived. I’ll send it to the media. Townsend has served his purpose.”

  “But why kill him?” I cried out, sickened by this perverse carnival of violence and amorality. “Let him spend the rest of his life in jail.”

  Gorky stood and came toward me, so serious and quietly furious that I actually began to tremble. “Because,” he said, “he tried to kill you.”

  “Me?” I repeated. “What difference does that make? He killed lots of people.”

  “You, Angel moy, he tried to kill you. Today. And he almost succeeded.”

  “It wasn’t personal!” Townsend shouted. “I was trying to kill Detective Marco because he was snooping around, talking to people he shouldn’t. I was afraid he’d connect the dots and expose my plans. The only way I knew to get him to the museum was by using his lover.”

  “You mimicked our voices,” I said.

  “Yes,” Townsend readily admitted.

  “And Roy’s as well. And Victor’s.”

  “Yes.”

  �
��How?” Marco said. Townsend had the audacity to stare at him with a smug I’ll-never-tell look. Marco lunged at him, grabbing the bars and rattling the cage. “Look, you inhuman SOB, you’d better start talking or I’ll throw this cage in the water myself. You have no hope of survival with Gorky. But I just might have mercy on you. If you talk.”

  Townsend cleared his throat. “I had your voices recorded, analyzed and synthesized for pliable audio reproduction. Quad techs recorded your phone calls at the station, Marco.”

  “And you recorded mine through my Personal Listening Device,” I said.

  He nodded. “Q.E.D. purchased a large order of PLDs wholesale and donated them to the Victims’ Rights Association on the condition that they be given out at the CRS convention last year.”

  “So you’ve been planning this for some time,” Marco remarked.

  Gorky waved a hand impatiently. “Forget this. It is unimportant. What I want to know is, didn’t you know that if you killed Marik in that blast that Angel would die, too?”

  “Of course, but I didn’t know she was important to you. If you had only told me—”

  “Bastard,” Gorky muttered.

  “Why!” I cried in frustration. “Why am I so important to you?”

  “My biggest mistake,” Townsend continued, looking at no one in particular, “was involving Angel Baker in the first place. But I thought she needed to learn a lesson. I thought it inappropriate that she had taken the law into her own hands and rescued those kidnapped orphans. And I thought it was the height of poor taste for her to brag about it on the nightly news. Her success weakened the morale and reputation of the police force.”

  “I didn’t brag,” I countered. “The press hounded me. Besides, people needed to know what happened to those poor girls and just how cancerous these crime syndicates are.”

  “I wanted to bring you down,” Townsend said, his eyes finally gleaming at me with something akin to genuine emotion. If I had to guess, I’d say it was hatred. “I wanted Q.E.D. to be the saving grace of this great city. At the last minute, I changed my plans and called you to the Cloisters so that you would be charged and humbled in the public eye.”