Glass Tiger

by Joe Gores

  Corwin? Asking why she betrayed him? Maybe threatening to kill her husband? So she screamed for security, then said he’d tried to snatch her purse. In a way, gave him enough time to escape, with Janet Kestrel driving the get-away vehicle?

  Back in the Post’s coverage, he found an even more provocative item. Two weeks before election night, Wallberg was relaxing for a day at the posh Desert Palms Resort and Spa in California’s Mojave Desert. While taking a midnight dip alone in the spa’s natural hot springs pool, he was accosted by a naked man. Secret Service agents fired shots, the assailant fled.

  The man being naked, far from branding him as a nut in Thorne’s eyes, suggested that the intruder had been Corwin. At night in unknown terrain, you could move much more quietly naked.

  He Googled the Desert Palms Resort and Spa, then used one of his phone cards to make a one-night reservation for Benjamin Schutz. Yes, mid-week, they had a single available.

  Uniformed guards checked his i.d. at the resort’s front gate before letting him through the high enclosing adobe wall into the compound. Supposedly the place had been built by Al Capone; there was even a Capone suite hewn out of the native rock, all antique furniture and art deco, where Wallberg had stayed when he had been there.

  Thorne’s room was in a tamarisk grove down by the picnic area. There was a tennis court surrounded by rare California clump grass; there was an exercise pool flanked by ornate teaberry bushes; there were ‘sun bins’ designed for solo nude sunbathing. The gambling casino of Capone’s day had been converted into the Casino Restaurant, with plush draperies, a huge fireplace, and a chunky refectory table that should have been gracing a medieval monastery. Perhaps it once had.

  He bought swim trunks at the gift shop, draped a big woolly bath towel over his shoulders, and padded up the walk past the mud baths and sauna and massage rooms to the hot pool. It was a blue, smooth-bottomed concrete cup, going from one foot to five feet in depth, shielded by decorative rocks and shrubs. At one end, the hot natural mineral water boiled up at regular intervals to spill down a man-made cliff into the pool. The closer to this overflow, the hotter the water.

  Thorne drifted in the hundred-degree velvet half-darkness, waiting for just the right security guard to stroll by. Had him! In his fifties, with a lined, leathery face, hard eyes, thinning sandy hair, a flawless uniform, and a military bearing. Perfect.

  ‘Vietnam?’ asked Thorne, dog-paddling to the side of the pool. ‘You can always tell a guy who’s seen action.’

  ‘Twenty-five years as an MP, stateside and overseas.’

  ‘Ex-Ranger myself. Panama. Desert Storm.’ He shook water out of his eyes and hauled himself up on the side of the pool. ‘They were telling me about that crazy nut jumped the president last fall. Were you working here then?’

  The guard glanced around, then sat down on a lounge chair.

  ‘I gotta tell you, there was something screwy about that whole thing. Hell, this naked guy, he was just talking with Wallberg, and then the feds showed up. He shoved Wallberg underwater and took off. They started shooting. They found blood but didn’t find him.’ His thin, hard lips curved in contempt. As Thorne had hoped, this ex-MP had no respect for civilian security forces. ‘They couldn’t find him, so they claimed he crawled off into the desert and died.’

  ‘Did they even hit him?’

  ‘Hell no. That guy took off like a scalded-ass ape. No way did he take a round. I think he scraped his head on the rock deliberately to give ’em the blood. I didn’t see his face, but he was about the President’s age. Rangy and quick even though he had a limp. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was ex-military.’

  At seven a.m. the next day, Sammy Spaulding met Hatfield at the unobtrusive corner of LAX where the FBI landed its jets. He whistled softly when he saw the Gulfstream.

  ‘And you thought I was blowing smoke,’ grinned Hatfield.

  ‘I thought you were covering your ass on some screw-up.’

  ‘Never happen, my man.’

  Sammy was one of the few people outside his own team whom he actually trusted, but Hatfield drove alone to keep his appointment with Marlena Werfel at Cedar’s-Sinai. She met him behind her bastion desk in the admin office.

  ‘First,’ he told her, ‘I want to apologize for any inconvenience or distress our man might have caused you.’

  ‘He was extremely rude.’

  ‘He has that reputation.’ Hatfield focussed on her. ‘You see, he’s supposed to be undercover in Chihuahua, Mexico. That’s why I flew out here from D.C. to talk to you in person.’

  ‘I knew it! He was asking inappropriate questions about a patient we had here last November. Janet Amore.’

  Who the hell was Janet Amore? But if Thorne wanted her, Hatfield wanted her. ‘What was Amore being treated for?’

  ‘She was mugged and beaten badly in an alley.’

  ‘And you couldn’t give Thorne an address for her?’

  ‘Could have. Didn’t. Her sister’s. But she’s long gone from there. He also wanted to know what sort of financial arrangements she made with the hospital, and her doctor’s name.’ A satisfied sniff. ‘I wouldn’t give him either one.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But he might have gotten the doctor’s name from one of our nurses who’s a talker and a trouble-maker.’

  ‘You’re a true patriot, Mrs. Werfel,’ said Hatfield.

  He phoned Houghton’s office and ordered the receptionist to have the doctor awaiting his arrival. In Houghton’s crowded cubicle office, Hatfield flopped his FBI credentials on the desk.

  ‘Special Agent Terrill Hatfield. I have just come from an interview with Marlena Werfel at Cedar’s-Sinai—’

  ‘I know Mrs. Werfel. She is an… efficient lady.’

  ‘More than efficient. A patriot.’

  ‘Spare me,’ said Houghton.

  He was just the sort of black man Hatfield despised: smooth, suave, polished, self-assured, with manicured nails.

  ‘Last November you treated a mugging victim named Janet Amore. Everything you have on her, including current address.’

  ‘If I ever treated such a patient—’

  ‘Oh, you treated her, all right.’

  ‘If I ever treated such a patient, her medical records are protected by law, Agent Hatfield.’

  ‘Not from me. How would you like a handcuffed ride to the Federal Building?’

  Houghton stood up so as to be eye to eye with him.

  ‘I came up from South Central, Hatfield, the first one in my family to finish high school, let alone go to medical school. I make a lot of money and I have a lot of clout – my bedside manner with this town’s movers and shakers is impeccable. So take your best shot – boy.’

  Hatfield was quivering with rage, but it was he who looked away first. Unlike Dorst, Houghton was unfazed by threats. The President would not want a public squabble over Hatfield’s right to see the patient records of a woman whose name he had just heard for the first time an hour before. He switched tacks.

  ‘Has a man named Thorne, maybe posing as an FBI agent, been to see you? Since he’s not one of your patients, you can’t hide behind doctor privilege on him.’

  ‘I never hide behind anything, Agent Hatfield. Since you won’t believe whatever I say anyway, I have no information.’

  Getting into his car, Hatfield thought, Fuck him, I’ll get to Janet Amore from other sources. Or maybe Thorne was there, and Houghton’s covering his ass for some unknown reason.

  He’d better put a bug on Houghton’s phone. If necessary, hack into his computer, burgle his files, intimidate his staff. One way or another, Hatfield would get what he wanted. He had the President of the United States in his pocket.

  30

  ‘You missed.’

  ‘Did I?’

  The exchange had added weight and meaning now. Driving back to LA with the easy noontime traffic, Thorne mulled over what he had learned at the Desert Palms Resort. Corwin had confronted Wallberg face-to-face, had even talked with him – about what?
Could have killed him, and hadn’t. Just ducked Wallberg under the surface of the water so he could escape. Did this mean he really had meant to shoot Jaeger after all?

  Thorne left the Hollywood Freeway at Vine, went west on Sunset, then south toward Houghton’s office. By now, the FBI surely would have interviewed the doctor and would have a tap on his phone whether he had been cooperative or not.

  Doubtful they’d have a tap on Houghton’s fax machine. Thorne found a Kinko’s, parked beyond it, walked back, sent an unsigned message to Houghton’s fax number: Your day is up. From a coffee shop across the street from Kinko’s, he watched and waited for half an hour. Nobody resembling a Feeb appeared. He went in, asked if there was a reply to his fax. There was. The Taco Bell a mile from my office. 2:30 p.m.

  Thorne got there at two to monitor the fast-food outlet from the adjacent gas station’s mini-mart. No Feebs. When Houghton arrived at 2:25 in a silver BMW-7 luxury sedan, Thorne opened the rider’s-side door and slid in.

  ‘Let’s just ride around.’

  Houghton wore dark glasses that gave his strong-boned face an actorish cast. ‘I’m glad you faxed instead of phoned.’

  ‘So someone came around.’

  ‘A most unpleasant specimen, Special Agent Terrill Hatfield.’ Houghton chuckled. ‘Accusatory. Bullying. Threatening me with all sorts of dire things. I don’t like bullies. I don’t threaten easily.’

  ‘I was counting on that.’

  ‘I was on the knife-edge about helping you or not, but Hatfield took care of that. As soon as he left, before he could get a warrant for a tap on my phone, I called your psychiatrist friend Sharon Dorst back in Washington and left her the number of my health club.’

  ‘Friend?’ said Thorne, mildly surprised.

  ‘Oh yes. Definitely a friend. She was cagey at first, but then she opened up, a lot. I think I understand a great deal more now.’ He stopped at a red light, looked over at Thorne. ‘The man who paid Janet’s medical expenses, someone named Halden Corwin, is the man you’re trying to track down.’

  ‘With good reason.’ Now Thorne chuckled. ‘I think.’

  ‘What I didn’t tell you yesterday is that Janet checked out in the middle of the night and had to leave behind a beautifully tanned bearskin. One of the nurses hid it in a hospital locker for her and gave her the key.’

  ‘Corwin’s. He must have given it to her.’

  The light changed, the BMW glided down the street. ‘Janet sent my nurse the key at the end of January and asked if we could get the bearskin to her without the hospital knowing. We did.’

  He pulled the BMW into the gas station next to the Taco Bell and stopped. Full circle. He took a folded memo sheet from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Thorne.

  Thorne unfolded it and read: JANET ROANHORSE General Delivery Groveland CA 95321.

  I’ll cover as long as I can,’ said Houghton, ‘but Hatfield will find out about that bearskin from someone on staff at Cedar’s-Sinai and then bring a lot of pressure on my nursing staff. I can’t ask them to sacrifice their careers for this.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want them to.’ Thorne shook Houghton’s hand and opened his door. ‘Many thanks, doctor.’

  ‘He pissed me off,’ said Houghton, and drove off laughing.

  Hatfield was fuming. There had been no calls from Thorne on Houghton’s phone, there was nothing to indicate he had ever gone to Houghton’s office.

  So he called Quantico. He couldn’t really use the FBI full-bore, because nobody except his team knew about Corwin, or about Thorne. But the President was behind him, so he could have his Hostage/Rescue team flown out to LA with their equipment. Special training exercise, some bullshit like that. Several trained men looking for Thorne was better than one trained man. He knew he could count on his team to get the job done and, within reason, keep its collective mouth shut.

  Waiting for them to arrive, he put the name Janet Amore out on CLETS and the National Crime Index, e-mailed the DMVs of all fifty states, Googled her, all without any results at all. No credit history, no driver’s license in that name. As if she didn’t exist. He planned to go interview the sister, Edie Melendez, but by her name she was probably a stupid beaner without a thought in her head.

  First he would take his ally, Marlena Werfel, out to lunch. A modest meal at a fancy place with a reputation, like Spago’s in Beverly Hills, would impress her. She could maybe even see a star or two and dine out on the experience for years.

  He didn’t mention business until they were on dessert and coffee. It turned out she had something worth a $125 lunch for him. Potentially, something big.

  He started out, ‘I spoke with Houghton. If Thorne went to see him, the doctor is stone walling. Patient confidentiality and all that. He’s doing the same thing on this Janet Amore. Is there anything you can think of that might help me find her?’

  She started to shake her head, then paused. Her eyes widened, she exclaimed triumpantly, ‘The locker!’

  ‘What locker?’ he almost snapped.

  ‘That nurse I told you was a troublemaker was seen sneaking something into one of the hospital lockers and giving the key to Amore. The nurse who saw her mentioned it to me. None of my business, of course. But then Amore sneaked out in the middle of the night and had to leave everything behind. I just bet whatever it was is still in that locker.’

  If Amore had left something behind – clothing, letters, photos, personal belongings – it was sure to give Hatfield some sort of clue to who she was and where she might have gone, and why Thorne was looking for her.

  ‘Let’s go take a look at that locker, Marlena.’

  But when they opened the locker with a master key, it was empty. Hatfield’s always volatile temper was bubbling up.

  ‘You mean someone just took it? How could they do that without the key?’

  ‘Amore must have given the key to someone,’ said Werfel. ‘They could have sneaked in, opened the locker, and emptied it.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘But my troublemaker will be on shift tonight. She’ll know who took it, and why. I’ll get it out of her.’

  ‘You sure it wasn’t Amore herself?’ demanded Hatfield.

  ‘If she’d been around, I would have known about it. I’ll have the answer by morning.’

  Probably it was the sister, Edie Melendez, who had taken it. If it was, she would have an address on Amore. And she would be easy to break down, her being a beaner with a green card that was probably bogus. Hatfield wouldn’t wait for morning.

  Dusk was approaching when he fought his way through the rush-hour exodus from LA to Grace Avenue in Carson. No one was home. A half-hour later a yard man’s beat-up old truck pulled into the driveway and a handsome Latino with liquid eyes and black hair in a ’50s pompadour got out. Obviously the hoosban. Hatfield intercepted him between truck and house.

  ‘We want to talk with your wife, Melendez. Right now.’

  The man turned quickly, warily, retreating to the safety of the racial barrier. He whined, ‘Wha’ you want with her, man?’

  Hatfield flopped his credentials open before Melendez’s startled eyes. ‘Special Agent Terrill Hatfield, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now start talking.’

  The change was remarkable. The diffidence was gone. ‘Day after your other man was here, I come home, Edie, she gone. Nobody cook me no meals, nobody wash my clo’es. Took off with all the dinero in the house.’ He stepped close. He reeked of beer. ‘You gotta get her back for me, man!’

  ‘This other agent? He have a name?’

  ‘She never even tell me he was here.’ He jerked a thumb at the house next door. ‘Neighbor, he tell me after she gone. A gringo, he say, with black hair. Thass all he know.’

  Thorne. Looking for Amore in all the wrong places.

  ‘We actually want your wife’s sister,’ said Hatfield. ‘Janet Amore. We know she’s been staying here with you and we know she had her sister pick up a package at the hospital after she was discharged.’

  ‘Package? I
don’ know nothin’ ’bout no package.’

  But the resistance had disappeared at mention of Amore.

  ‘She was here, si, but she gone,’ he said eagerly. ‘Is always trouble, tha’ one. She’s nothin’ but a puta, man. Look for her where the whores walk the streets. She got beat up cause she did bad things. Of that I am sure.’

  A whore. ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Doan know, doan care. Maybe Edie, she know. But Edie, she gone too.’ His belligerence returned. Obviously his green card was in order. ‘She lef’ cause of FBI, now wha’ the FBI gonna do to get her back for me?’

  ‘We’re not going to do anything,’ said Hatfield. He handed Melendez a card. ‘But if your wife gets in touch with you, or her sister does, you call this number, pronto. Or you’ll be back in Mexico so fast your fucking huaraches will be smoking.’

  31

  There were twelve of them waiting for the bus at Groveland, an old goldrush town in the Sierra foothills on the way to Yosemite National Park. It was their first river raft trip, and they were charged up. The bus pulled up. They filed aboard. The driver stood in the front, counting noses.

  ‘It’s about a fifteen-twenty minute ride to Casa Loma,’ he said. ‘Then five miles of really bad road to the Put-In Spot on the Tuolemne River. I’m glad to see you’re wearing warm clothes. This early in May, the river is still pretty darn cold.’

  A slender woman with streaked blond hair and smile lines at the sides of her mouth gestured at the equally slender fifteen-year-old boy beside her.

  ‘Can Jimmy sit up front behind you?’

  The boy looked embarrassed. The bus driver chuckled.

  ‘Sure can. He’ll like that ride down the hill. By the way, in case any of you are worried, the rafts almost never get tipped over. Even if one of ’em got holed by a sharp rock, there’s no life-threatening danger. But just to be on the safe side, AQUA River Tours furnishes wet suits, life jackets and helmets to all our clients.’

  He didn’t add that anyone going into the river would get bruised and scraped, maybe get a cracked rib or two, because that’s not what the clients were paying to hear. Instead, he fired up the bus. Snorting diesel fumes, it lurched forward.