His eyes sought mine as a sneer crossed the lips I hated.
"Take-out menus?" I asked.
"Do you have a minute?" he replied, sitting without being invited.
The question was not polite or considerate, it wasn't even accurate. George Toller believed he'd caught me like a winking Irish-man trapping a leprechaun, and his "minute" was meant to be the rest of my natural-born life.
I didn't answer, and so he pressed on.
"Terry Swain," he said.
I blinked innocently.
"Are you telling me that you don't know Swain?"
"This is your show, Mr. Toller. I'm not telling you anything."
"You cosigned for Mr. Swain's hot dog concession, did you not?"
I performed a noncommittal shrug to keep a toe in the realm of good manners.
"Mr. Swain was the building manager before Aura Ullman. He was suspected by the new owners of having defrauded the corporation. They were assembling a good case against him until a lawyer named Breland Lewis stopped criminal proceedings by throwing suspicion on a previous employee who had, conveniently, died."
"Peter Cooly," I said. "He died of a heart attack months before I ever even heard of Terry."
"Breland Lewis is your lawyer."
"This is America, Mr. Toller. Breland is his own man, as I am mine."
"The relationship between the lawyer, the embezzler, and you," he said, "along with the ridiculously low fifteen-year lease you procured is evidence of fraud, at the very least."
Something about Toller's tone reminded me of the posturing of the teenagers at the now-and-again middle schools of my so-called youth. He was playing a role but didn't know it, pretending that he was somehow wounded by actions taken before he was ever involved. He was talking, and I was hearing him, but I wasn't listening--at least not all that closely.
". . . you were arrested for tampering with police evidence in nineteen eighty-nine . . ." he said.
I was thinking that I had to take the next step in uncovering the reason that the assassin was in Soa's apartment.
". . . nineteen ninety-two you were arrested along with Gonzalez family members on an organized-crime charge . . ."
I was thinking about Dimitri, the brooding, bulky young man, kissing some beautiful Russian girl, filling his heart with love. I was also thinking that love never seems to last--except where there's blood involved.
". . . in nineteen ninety-six you were arrested on charges of battery ..."
With love and blood bound together in my thoughts, the wildflowers on the old stereo box came to mind. Something about their delicate beauty seemed out of place in my life.
A bubble of something like regret formed in my chest.
Toller was reciting a new litany in an angry tone.
I looked up and saw that he was actually reading from his accumulated indictment.
"What does all that shit tell you, Mr. Toller?" I asked, cutting off his rant.
"Excuse me?"
I stood up.
"What does all that shit in your files tell you?"
"I will thank you to keep a civil tongue when addressing me, Mr. McGill."
"All right," I said. "How about this? In exactly ten seconds I'm going to walk around this desk. If you are still in the room I'm going to beat you to death with your own motherfucking files. One ..."
Toller leaped to his feet, grabbed his papers, and hurried from the room.
I finished the count and went after him.
There were a few loose sheets that had fallen in the hallway.
When I got to the antechamber of my office, Mardi was sitting at her desk. She wore a champagne- colored dress with puffy sleeves.
"Mr. Toller left," she said.
I blinked and wondered if I was actually that close to murder. I decided that I was, and that maybe I needed professional help. So I walked back to my office and called the deadliest man I have ever known.
41
Hush likes his steaks rare to bloody, and so I made a reservation at a steak house at the upscale mall on the southwestern arc of Columbus Circle. The young hostess walked me to a booth in a dark corner of the airy restaurant. The ex-hit man was there before me, lounging thoughtfully behind a glass of tap water, no ice.
"LT," he said in greeting.
I shoved in opposite the most excellent assassin in New York history. He was a plain-looking white man of average height and build with medium brown hair and darker brown eyes. He didn't make much of an impression except for his deep voice. But that wasn't much of a distinction because he rarely spoke.
I was always a little uncomfortable around Hush--maybe more than a little. He knew a thousand ways to kill a man and dozens of techniques to make the body disappear. He was the classic cold-blooded killer who seemed to the world to have no heart or conscience.
Outside of his wife, I was the only person to know both his true name and his professional history.
"Hush," I said.
"You look tired, LT."
"Work's aplenty."
"I ordered you a Wild Turkey and a rib eye," he said. "They're coming."
"Thanks for meeting me on such short notice."
"All I had was a simple day of airport runs," he said.
After retiring from the killing trade Hush became a limo driver for an elite company that sometimes needed bodyguarding along with a driver's license. I really don't know why he even had the job. Hush didn't need the money.
I took the faxed photograph of the dead man and pushed it across the table. Hush laid a hand down on the face as a woman's voice said, "Wild Turkey neat."
She was a young blonde with a severe hairdo that would have been right at home in the conservative part of the sixties. Her makeup was perfect, and even though she was plain you could see that she would make an impact wherever she went.
"Thank you," I said.
As she left, Hush lifted his hand and looked at the picture. Then, with a single digit, he pushed it back across to me.
"I've been informed that he's in your old profession," I said.
"Adolph Pressman. A hack. Okay for a bullet in the back of the head, but no good at all for something that requires finesse. Looks dead."
"Somebody blindsided him while he was killing a girl."
"Sloppy."
We paused on that word for a few moments and the severe blonde came back with our orders.
That finished, I asked, "Well?"
"Adolph, he's kind of like, what do you call it? A spoke in a wheel, if the wheel is a society of killers. Well . . . not a society really because none of them know each other. The only really dangerous part is the hub--a man named Patrick."
"Patrick what?"
Hush shook his head and stuck out his lower lip.
"All I can tell you is that going after Patrick is not for the faint of heart."
"I have never fainted in my life."
Hush smiled and sipped his water.
"Tamara wants to move back up to New York," he said.
I had all the information I needed. If Hush had known where I could find Patrick he would have told me. I could have left right then, but it just wouldn't be friendly to use somebody like that. Besides, I was hungry.
Tamara was Hush's wife. She's a black woman, young and plain-looking but with a spirit that could fill the sails of a three-master. She and their son, Thackery, had been moved to an island off the South Carolina coast after their lives were threatened by Hush's enemies.
"Tired of the country life?"
He gave me a queer glance and then nodded.
"Yeah," he said. "Thackery's got himself a little southern drawl and she hates it."
I was thinking many things. First among these was that Tamara would probably be safe. Hush was out of the business and the only man who had ever threatened her was long dead.
"When are they coming back?" I asked.
It was then that our chopped salads arrived.
By the time we'd grazed our w
ay through the roughage, our rib eyes were served. While eating we talked mostly about sports. Hush liked the team sports, but I was a one-on-one man. We could still converse, though.
It wasn't until we were in the middle of our coffees that he said, "What makes you think that she's coming back?"
"The simple fact that you said she wanted to," I answered. "That, and I know she and Thackery are the foghorns to your lost humanity."
A man can get used to anything. If one day he found himself coming awake in a lion's den, any sane man would be petrified. Absolute fear would govern his mind for many minutes--possibly for hours. But if the lion didn't attack him, and enough time passed, normalcy, or its near cousin, would return. If days were to pass and some kind of truce were evident, the man might learn to communicate with the king feline. Given time, his fear might abate completely.
But he'd still be in close proximity to a murderous carnivore.
"You think you know me?" Hush asked. There was no friendliness in his tone.
I remembered the first time I'd heard a lion in the zoo roaring at feeding time. The fear I felt was something preverbal, older even than the human breast in which it resided.
"What do you want me to say, Hush?"
His ageless brow creased.
"What?" he asked.
"I assume that Tamara will come back if she wants to," I said, possibly hiding the primal fear I felt. "She's your wife, but she can make up her own mind. That's all I meant."
For a long, hard minute the killer, alongside the man, stared at me. It was like watching war.
Finally he cleared his throat.
"Sorry, LT," he said. "You know, sometimes I fall into an old rut. It's how I was trained."
Me on my tightrope and him in his turret. That line from a poem I'd never write flitted through my mind.
"She's comin' back next week," he said. "I got a place for her on Fifth Avenue, down around Ninth. She told me that she wants your number."
I was the one who saved her when she and Thackery had been kidnapped.
"She can call me anytime," I said. I was born in the lion's den, a fool in spite of my sensible fears.
"Maybe we can all get together some night," he suggested.
"That sounds real good."
42
I went to a bookstore to collect myself after the encounter with my friend--Death.
It was a superstore on the second floor of the mall.
I glanced through the bestsellers but nothing caught my fancy. I searched around until coming across a section that had the new books that were less known, less popular. Among these I came across a book about a thief, a second-story man, who had broken his leg in a botched attempt to break into an old woman's house. He tried to get away but fainted on the street. Many people passed the guy by, mistaking him for some homeless vagabond napping on the sidewalk.
Finally the old woman got home and found him. She had a neighborhood handyman bring him into the house, where she could attend to his broken bone.
It was one of those silly stories that get to you--at least it got to me. I was worried about the man's salvation, and the old woman's life savings, about the witness across the street who had seen the attempted break-in, and the old woman's grandniece, who slowly begins to have feelings for the burglar.
Somebody knocked over a display stand near to the chair where I was reading. The crash threw me out of the story and I couldn't read my way back in. So I got up, went down to the number 1 train, and rode in a car full to brimming over with commuters going from the jobs that they didn't want back to the lives they hadn't bargained for.
THESE DAYLIGHT HOURS WEREN'T wasted. The meeting with Hush, no matter how unsettling, helped me to decide what avenue to take to get to Angie. But there was nothing I could do while the sun still shone, so I headed home, intent on climbing into another cold shower; after that I'd be ready to find my client and inform her of our hitherto unrevealed relationship.
THE LOBBY TO MY apartment building was a small suite of rooms, a throwback to a more genteel era of New York living. I stood upon the threadbare carpet, considered a moment, then decided on the elevator instead of the stairs. I needed to save my strength for the job ahead.
"Mr. McGill?" she said.
There was the trill of Eastern Europe in the English, and a mild vibration to the youthful feminine voice.
She came from the alcove to the right. It was a small sitting room that a few of the older residents used in the daytime when they needed a breather after coming back from shopping or while waiting for their laundry in the basement to finish a washing or drying cycle.
"Yes?" I said, thinking that if she were one of Adolph Pressman's associates I'd already be dead.
"I am Tatyana Baranovich, a friend of your son Dimitri."
She was twenty, svelte, dressed suggestively but only just. Her makeup was minimal and totally unnecessary. All in all, she gave that aura of sexy conservatism that Scandinavian professionals revel in.
"I've been looking forward to meeting you," I said.
As we shook hands she stared into my eyes, not so much to see something but to exhibit how serious her visit was.
"Let's go back into the alcove," I said. "D's mother wouldn't add much to this talk."
Following her into the little half-room, I could see what my son was besotted by. Hell, I could see why a hardened pimp like Gustav didn't want to let her go.
We sat across from each other in stiff padded chairs that were somewhat reminiscent of the crammed-in seats on an overcrowded charter flight.
Tatyana adjusted her position so that I could witness her discomfort. This uneasiness was complemented by the anxiety in her eyes.
"Let me call Katrina first," I said.
"Who is that?"
"D's mother."
"Oh."
"HELLO?" SHE SAID, ANSWERING the second ring.
"Hey."
"Leonid. Where are you?"
"I was on my way home but I got waylaid. I might not be back for an hour or so. I hope that doesn't mess up your plans."
"Shelly is studying till late," she said. "And the boys are still gone. I'll keep something warm for you. But you better let me go so nothing burns."
"Okay. Bye."
I wanted to make sure that Katrina was home and not planning to leave. I didn't want her to see me and Tatyana together. One thing about my wife--she could tell what another woman was up to, and Tatyana was a veritable beacon of intention.
"Why are you here?" I asked her.
"Twill said I must talk to you. He gave me key to the front door."
"You could have gone to my office."
"I called but you were gone. Twill said I could wait here and that you would come. He said I would know you, as I know Dimitri."
Even with my years of experience, something about her made me want to trust the girl.
"So," I said. "Tell me about Gustav."
After a moment's hesitation she said, "He is pimp," in crisp, matter-of-fact language.
"And?"
"My brother is sick," she said. "My younger sister was too young to help. My mother was alone, and a man came to me and said that I could come to America and do . . . what I do for three years and then, after I made his partners a million dollars, I will be free. I send money home and sleep with old fat men."
The buzzer to the front door sounded and my son's school friend Bertrand Arnold rushed in. He pressed the elevator button and concentrated on the door as if to hurry the car along. His being there could have been for any reason. After all, he was my son's friend; he had come to the house before looking for Dimitri.
He could have had any number of reasons for being in my building.
But the choices became somewhat limited by the bouquet of wildflowers nestled in the crook of his right arm. He was probably waiting around the corner. Maybe he and Katrina were to meet somewhere nearby but now that I would be late they might get a few kisses in before I came home.
&nb
sp; "He lied to me," Tatyana was saying. She was facing away from the elevator door.
If Bertrand glanced to his right he would have seen me sitting there, staring at him. But the young suitor's attention was somewhere else.
When the door slid open he rushed in, all hormones, fear, and maybe love.
". . . when I told him that I wanted him to do what he promised, he had a man named Vassily beat me and rape me."
"Tatyana," I said.
"Yes?"
"That's a beautiful name."
"Thank you," she said, wondering.
"How did Dimitri get mixed up in all this? I mean, my son has a good heart, but if I were in your position he'd be the last person I'd turn to for help."
She lowered her eyelids and smiled. This young woman and I were equals, at least in her estimation. She might have been right.
"I was very worried. You could see it on my face. He asked me what was wrong and I was so upset that I told him. I had to talk to someone. Dimitri said that he knew someone who might know a place for me to hide until we could do something. I was scared and I didn't know anyone but professors and students . . . and Gustav's whores. Dimitri introduced me to your younger son. At first I thought he was just a boy, but then Twilliam brought me to a house in the Bronx and then out to a beach house on Long Island. He told me that if I was his brother's friend that he would help me. He said that if I left New York with Dimitri he could go to you and that you would know what to do."
I was thinking about my wife and her younger boyfriend, about Dimitri and this tiger he had by the tail. Aura's boyfriend was trying to demolish my whole life, and Ron Sharkey wanted to apologize to the woman who had destroyed his everything.
"How are you and Dimitri living?" I asked.
"I had money hidden in a gym locker at school."
"Where is D right now?"
The beautiful child from Minsk inhaled and held the breath.
"If you don't lie to me," I said, "about anything . . . I will help you."
"He doesn't want me to tell you," she said. "He told me not to come here. Right now he thinks I am getting clothes from a girlfriend of mine."
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