"Come sit with me for a moment, Mr. McGill," she commanded.
We strode into the block-long living room--Sandra in the lead, me in close pursuit, and Corman bringing up the rear.
She gestured toward one of the black sofas and I sat at the end nearest me. Sandra perched in the middle of her ebony divan and brought her hands together, as if in symbolic, passionless prayer.
"Do you have children, Mr. McGill?"
"I have friends with guns," I said in answer to a perceived threat.
"I have wealth beyond the everyday citizen's ability to comprehend," she said, "and still I could not save my son's life."
"I read about that. I'm sorry."
"I would do anything to make my son's memory a part of the fabric of this city that he loved."
"New York's like a boiling cauldron," I said, only dimly understanding why. "We are all consumed therein."
"That's down in the street you're talking about," Sanderson told me with a dismissive wave of her liver-spotted hand. "Up here it's different. Up here we can make a difference."
I stared out the window, wondering at the nature of the combination of folly and wealth.
"Do you know a man named . . . Alphonse Rinaldo?" she asked.
"No. Who is he?"
Despite my usual sangfroid, sweat sprouted on my head.
"I could make you a rich man," she offered.
"I'm sure."
"Where can I find Angelique Lear?"
There were no planes in the sky, no rain.
"I don't know."
"Are you a fool, Mr. McGill?"
"That I am."
"I will have my memorial or that child will die, as my son died."
"Not while I'm here."
"You are nothing," she said.
There was a finality to her sentence. I felt as if a high court had just pronounced judgment on my soul.
"Grant," she said then, speaking to Mr. Corman. "See our guest out."
"I can push the button myself," I said.
I stood up on boxer's pins. I might have been wobbled, but I was going to end that round on my feet.
53
I had made it past the green desk and more than half the way across Regents Bank's broad entrance hall.
"Excuse me, sir," one of the burly business-suited guards from earlier said.
I kept walking.
"Excuse me."
Moving at a pretty good clip, I was less than fifteen feet from the revolving door when one of the men got in front of me. His partner was there at my side a moment later.
One was black, the other white, but for the most part they were interchangeable minions of the Corporation. Their suits were both dark blue, their heights indistinguishably tall.
"Yes?"
"Come with us, please," the white one said. "We have some questions."
"No thanks."
"We have to insist."
"You will swallow all your front teeth before I go anywhere with either one of you."
"What?" the black corporate cop said. He put a hand on my shoulder.
For a man in his mid-fifties I'm pretty fast. I crouched down and hooked a good left into the black man's midsection. I felt the wound inflicted by Patrick tear a bit, but it was worth it. I could tell by the guard's deep exhalation that he would need a few moments to recover. I stood up behind a right uppercut that the white guard had no defense for. He sprawled out on his back and I started walking toward the doors again.
People shouted behind me, but my point had been made effectively. No one else tried to block my egress. I exited the building feeling right with the world for the first time in many days.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE," a voice commanded on Forty-ninth between Fifth and Sixth.
I stopped and turned. Four uniforms were approaching.
"Yes, officers?" I asked, smiling sincerely.
"Don't move."
"Is there a problem?"
I liked the makeup of the modern NYPD even if they had no use for me. The small group consisted of a black woman, a black man, one Asian gentleman, and a strawberry-blond white rookie who somehow brought to my mind the phrase one-hit wonder.
The black man was the one addressing me. He was solidly built, not a hair over five eight.
"Where you coming from?" he asked.
"Just out for a walk, officer."
"From where?"
"I don't know. Walkin' around is all."
"Let me see your knuckles."
"Why?"
"Show me your hands."
"Give me a reason," I said. I hadn't meant for it to sound like a threat but I could see a jolt go through the assembled constabulary.
THE ARREST TOOK A long time.
When taking a suspect into custody on the streets of Midtown Manhattan the police dot all i's and cross their t's and f 's. They ask you questions and, if you're me, you give them indecipherable answers.
I wasn't worried about assault charges. The fight was on tape, no doubt. Two men had assaulted me in the bank. They didn't have badges or uniforms. I hadn't said a word in provocation--not really.
After a while the police got around to binding my hands behind my back. Maybe forty minutes later I was hustled into the back of a police cruiser driven by the Asian and attended by Blondie.
Half the way to the midtown precinct the white kid's cell phone rang.
After twenty seconds of conversation he looked at his partner and said, "They want us to bring him over to the Port Authority, Park."
"Why?"
"Didn't say."
"Who was it?"
"The sergeant."
WITH MY HANDS STILL bound behind me I was taken through a series of doors and down innumerable hallways to a Port Authority Police office somewhere in the bowels of the building.
"Hello, McGill," Bethann Bonilla said.
"Are you Lieutenant Bonilla, ma'am?" the white kid asked.
"Release him and leave us," she replied.
The young cops did as they were told. They asked no questions . . . this told me something.
The room was small and stale. The beat-up oak desk had stood there as long as the Port Authority itself and the floor had been battered by ten thousand feet. Many a purse snatcher and pick-pocket had been detained here before their deportation to the Tombs, or maybe straight to their arraignment. It was a sad stop-over for pimps, prostitutes, and the mentally deranged.
I felt right at home.
"To what do I owe my freedom?" I asked, taking a seat across from the cop.
"The bank sent down notice to drop charges," she said. "But I had already been notified. I decided to have them bring you here because NYPD won't be able to yank you out too quickly."
She smiled.
"Who are you worried about yanking me?"
"Kitteridge, Charbon," she said. "There's a DA named Tinely who seems to want his pound of flesh."
"And what do you want, Lieutenant?"
The wisp-thin, steel-hard lady cop placed her maroon elbows on the old-time desk. She laced her fingers, pressed the pads of her thumbs together, and considered me.
"That depends on what you have," she answered.
"You want to make a trade?"
"What do you need from me?"
"There's a pimp named Gustav on East Houston who's paying off a Lieutenant Saul Thinnes. One of the girls is a friend. I need Gustav busted--busted bad."
"And what do I get out of that?"
"Have you got a name for the dead man in Wanda Soa's apartment?"
Her eyes couldn't conceal the excitement.
I gave her Pressman's name and his alias. I told her that he was a hit man on staff with a killer known only as Patrick.
"Why would somebody want this Soa dead?" she asked.
"Maybe her drug connections. Can you drop a hammer on Gustav?"
"Oh yeah."
"You aren't worried about Thinnes?"
"If he's crooked he better be worried about me."
&
nbsp; THERE WAS YET ANOTHER bartender at the Naked Ear when I got there at 7:06; a thirty-something white guy with slim shoulders and a little belly. I perched down at the far end of the bar and ordered my three cognacs. The bartender was named Ely. He knew everything about sports and so we had a long talk, between orders, about Henry Arm-strong, the only boxer who ever held three title belts in three different weight classes at the same time. In the space of twelve months, he successfully campaigned in nineteen defenses of those belts.
"I think he was superior to Sugar Ray Robinson," Ely said. "Pound for pound."
"Yeah," I said, "but it's not like math."
"What do you mean?"
"In weight lifting the man who lifts the heaviest weight wins. But in boxing, after a certain point, it's all heart."
"Hi," a woman said.
I turned and there was Lucy.
Ely slapped me on the forearm and moved on down the bar. "He called me," she said. "I asked all the bartenders to call me if you came in."
"What happened the other night?" I asked. "I was here."
"I wanted to see if you'd come twice."
"I'M OUT OF CONDOMS," Lucy apologized at one in the morning. "I only bought a box of three. I mean, I guess I could do something else."
I pulled the blankets off her and kissed her navel. She giggled and rolled away. She went too far and tumbled off the side of the bed. We both laughed and I pulled her back on.
We'd been in that bed for four hours. If I'd been taking an erectile-dysfunction drug I'd've had to go to the emergency room.
"I think it's all the tension in my life," I said. "That and the fact that both my wife and my girlfriend have boyfriends now."
"What's bad for the boy-goose is good for the girl-goose bartender," she said.
I kissed her.
There must have been some kind of hesitation in the kiss or my body language because she said, "Don't worry. I'm not asking for any more than I already got. I really am married. Jeff's a painter. He's at an art colony in New Hampshire. He's the kind of guy can't go three days without sex, so I know he's with someone."
"So I'm your revenge?"
"My solace," she said, and we held each other a while.
I GOT OUT OF the taxi, drunk on more than liquor. I was still high from the brief fight with the Regents security team and the passion that Lucy the bartender drew from me. I took a deep breath at the front door of my building. A man touched my left triceps. It hurt my wound. Turning toward him, I swiveled my torso at the hip when the blow came from behind.
There was only a moment of consciousness left to me, a sliver of fading light that I squandered wondering if I had been shot in the back of the head.
54
The smells of wood ash and pine needles were the first signs of returning consciousness. I was in a seated position. My fingers were numb from the tight bonds around my wrists, which were tied to the arm of the heavy chair. My feet weren't going anywhere, seeing that they were lashed to the front legs of the chair.
It took a moment for me to identify the speeding fire engine, its horns blaring. It was the headache brought on by the blow to my skull.
There were lights here and there in the room but the pulsating pain made them seem like stars--points in the darkness that illuminated nothing but themselves.
"He's awake," a gruff voice said.
There was motion in the room.
Two large shapes moved in my direction. Men in suits. One was large and brutal. The other looked like a professional manager of a large, glass-walled office.
"Mr. McGill," the manager said.
"Who is that?" I had to squint to see past the pain.
"My name is Shell," he said. "I hear that you've been looking for me."
Something about the connectivity between the ideas cleared up my vision. I was in a cabin, probably in the woods, judging by the smells. The larger man was quite hairy and wore a woolly gray suit. Silently I dubbed him Mammoth. Shell's suit was a muted silver-gray color and he wore expensive Italian shoes cut from red-brown leather.
"You coulda just called me," I said.
I had the urge to vomit but squelched it. Neither Mammoth or Shell looked like they'd have cleaned me up afterwards.
"There's a time for all things," Shell intoned. "This, my friend, is not the moment for bravery."
"Oh no? Why's that?"
The blow Shell delivered was hard--very hard. The heaviness of the chair anchored me, which only added to the power of the clout. I'm used to getting hit. I've sparred and fought real fights for nearly forty years. But Shell's blow was something real, a second fire engine crashing headlong into the first.
The next thing I knew there was cold water in my ears and running down my neck. That chill was the first time I was reminded of Patrick and Diego--but not the last.
"You can get seriously damaged if you don't answer my questions," Shell said.
I blinked twice. There was blood coming down the left side of my forehead. The upper part of the back of my left arm burned.
I remember thinking that my investigation was a success, that everything was falling into place--on top of me.
Shell hit me again but I maintained consciousness.
"Where's Angelique?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"You don't know what?"
"Where Angelique is."
He struck again, doused me with water again.
I was getting colder. The iciness kept Patrick in my mind.
"You have to know her," Shell said. "You knew about me."
"I met her," I told him, "in a coffee shop. She told me her problem and I agreed to look into it."
He hit me twice.
"I followed the line of ownership for the Leontine Building . . ."
He hit me.
". . . and found out that Regents Bank owned it. I figured that Shell, you, worked for Regents."
He hit me again.
I've been in boxing gyms regularly since the age of fourteen. I've been hit two hundred times in an evening by light heavyweights and heavyweights who know how to hit. I might've looked like shit, but you can't judge a book by its cover, or a boxer by his cuts.
"Where is she?" Shell asked.
I realized that my mind had been wandering, sent on its circuitous route by Shell's power shots.
"I don't know where she is."
"Then how did you know to come to Regents?"
"She told me about you, at least somebody with your name, about meeting this man at his office in the Leontine. I'm a detective. I followed it down from there."
Mammoth came over and hit me then. That threw the chair over and me into dreamland.
When I awoke I was sitting up again. Mammoth had moved back toward the fake-log wall, and the fireplace was blazing but throwing off very little heat.
"Where is she?" Shell asked from somewhere off to the left.
I turned to him.
"Don't let that guy hit me again," I said. That was the beginning of my plan. It wasn't much of a strategy but it was mine and I was sticking to it.
"Then tell me where she is."
"She had money on her," I said. "Three thousand dollars. She was going to take a bus out west. I told her to hang around, to go to a hotel and call my office after five days. She gave me five hundred and went to ground."
I thought my nose was broken after his next punch. It wasn't, but it sure felt like it.
"Where is she?"
THE BEATING WENT ON for a quite a while. It got harder and faster when they realized that I was going to hang tough. Unluckily for me these guys weren't sadomasochists. I say unluckily because if they had pulled out a knife, or even just a burning cigarette, I could have put my plan into action. But all they were doing was hitting me. I didn't want to make it too easy on them so I took the punishment until I figured they'd hit me enough to have broken someone not trained in the fistic arts.
I once studied the Method under a wonderful thespian named Anja Kl
ieger. I had no intention of going onstage, but I figured that my profession demanded believable emotional pretense from time to time.
Anja had taught me to remember a time when I had the feeling that the character I was portraying felt.
I thought about my father walking out the door with his army-surplus duffel bag. I remembered his last hug and then the months of my mother's decline. At last I thought about a boy entering puberty, alone in the world for no reason that made sense.
I wasn't in a cabin in the woods. I wasn't being beaten by hard men. I was a child bereft of the only love he'd known. The tears began to flow and I cried for the first time in over a decade.
"I'll tell you," I said. "Just stop it. Stop it."
"Where's the girl?" Shell asked. He was a little winded from the exertions of beating me. I'm sure his knuckles were sore.
"I don't know where she is but I know who has her."
"Who?"
"A guy named Brennan. I told him that I'd call when it was safe."
"What's the number?"
I gave it to him. "But if anybody but me calls he'll hang up and run."
Shell brought out a gun and pointed it at my forehead. "Untie his hands, Leo," Shell said.
Mammoth did so.
"Hand our friend the phone," the cruel manager added.
I tried to take the landline receiver but it fell from my numb fingers.
"What the fuck?" Leo said.
"It's my hands," I said hastily. "They're numb from being tied for so long."
"Take your time," Shell said generously.
After a few minutes I entered a number. As soon as the phone started ringing Shell picked up an extension line.
The phone rang seven times before Hush answered.
"Hello?" he said.
"You got the girl, Brennan?"
"You know I do," he said easily.
"I need to see her."
"Sure."
"Where do you have her?"
"You know that private cemetery in Hicksville?"
"Yeah."
"Show up at the gate after the sun rises and I'll buzz you in."
He hung up and I took a deep breath.
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