Walt’s cell phone buzzed, and he ducked behind a potted tree to answer.
A woman’s grating voice cleared the wax from his ears. “Kevin tells me we’re invited to dessert with you and Jerry up at the Pio. Is that for real?”
“Hello, Myra.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“But it sounds noisy.”
“Kevin’s right. Dessert is for real. My treat. The Pio, maybe eight-thirty, quarter to nine.” He checked his watch, realizing if she hadn’t called, he might have forgotten the dinner with his father. The Salt Lake photographs had pushed all else from his mind.
“But Jerry?” she asked. “What if he’s drinking?”
“Then you’ll be doing me a big favor by coming,” Walt said honestly.
“Okay…okay. But he starts dumping on Kevin, we’re out of there.”
“And I’ll be right behind you,” Walt said.
He hung up the call, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
Twenty-three
T ell me you weren’t running from me,” Ailia said.
Danny took a little too long to say, “Don’t be silly.”
She gestured to the nearest guest room, marked “Guercino” on the door.
“Indifferent. Or trying to be,” Danny said.
“But why?”
“New leafs don’t turn over easily.”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me you bought the whole twelve-step thing.”
“I bought it, but it was on credit.”
“Five minutes. Don’t make me beg.” She led him down the hall and into the first guest suite-as it happened, his.
She closed the door with authority.
“I’m going to skip the missing-you part, and how hard it’s been, and get to the point: I can help you, Danny. Want to. With Stu, I’m talking about. Trilogy.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Patrick told me all about it. He’s in a snit you won’t keep it in the family, but hey, if it’s Stu and me, it’s almost family anyway, don’t you think?”
“I think this is my business and Paddy had no right to-”
“Oh, come on! He’s looking after you. We’re all looking after you. And at least one of us is looking right at you.” She stepped closer, a dozen sweet smells swirling in front of her. “I’m not the enemy, you know?”
If she moved another inch toward him their bodies would touch. Now he felt her body heat. It mixed with her scent and his head swam.
“Allie…no.”
“Ah, come on. Why deny a girl a little pleasure?” Her breath smelled of red wine. “You know how I am about pleasure.”
The longer she stood there, the weaker his will. He inhaled deeply and some hairs danced toward his face.
She whispered, “Let me help. Please.” She tentatively placed her hands on his waist, above his hip bones. “I’m not going to beg,” she said. “Not until our clothes are off, at least. You know how I get.” She smiled, and as much as he wanted to see her as self-serving and shallow, a middle-aged flirt, to be turned off by her, he found himself quite the opposite. He liked aggressive women. She knew this about him and exploited it. “I’ve been fantasizing about you, Danny, for over a year now. In the shower. Alone at night. That’s a lot of fire needs putting out. You know me.”
He felt his resistance failing. Her perfumes invaded him and hit like a drug. His skin burned where she touched him.
“Feel where I’m the warmest?” she said, pushing her hips forward and burning through to his thigh.
More scents escaped from her neckline-dark, lusty odors that didn’t come from a bottle-scents that were designed to trigger urges and instincts, and he was a fool to think he could prevent it. He drank them down and they fed him, and the addict in him, so barely confined, wanted more. He’d sworn no internal oath against this. He had no battle with her. Physically he needed this, and she knew it and the offer that now came out of her, in an expression of hands and a willingness of her lips parting to kiss him, so overwhelmed him that he didn’t simply give in to it, he thrived on it.
He pulled off her clothes, down to that tangle of dark, and devoured her in a flurry of impulse, while she pleasured herself behind guttural coughs as she sped toward climax.
Down in the living room, the quartet played on, their strains heard as muted sentimental nonsense, while in the room, behind a wincing call for more, the real music played to its finale.
Twenty-four
P atrick Cutter couldn’t find them. He’d lost track of Ailia and Danny, and while overcome with joy at the arrival of Shaler, he wanted to spare his brother from doing something stupid. Added to his motivation was jealousy, but he kept that in check for the time being. Having left Liz Shaler in capable hands, he now searched more aggressively.
He crossed through the kitchen, briefly sidelined by Heinz, his German chef imported from southern France. Ironically, the complaint involved Stuart Holms’s personal chef, who had “taken over” one of the three ovens “without regard” for Heinz. Patrick settled the man down and got out of there in a hurry. Holms’s chef traveled with Stuart everywhere, supposedly to provide a special diet to the Wall Street wonder. He was currently preparing finger food for a party of one. Chef Raphael delivered each plate of treats to his boss personally, making a great show of it and convincing some-Patrick was sure-to believe it was Holms’s party, not his. The delay heightened his sense of urgency: He had to find Ailia before she relit his brother’s fuse, and perhaps blew them all up in the process.
Passing his wife’s study, he stopped short.
“May I help you?”
The man sitting behind her desk wore dark sunglasses. He had a mustache and beard, and looked vaguely familiar.
“Are you a waiter?” the man asked.
“I’m the owner, actually. Patrick Cutter. May I help you?” Only as the man stood out of the chair did Patrick spot the white cane leaning against the desk.
“It’s Rafe Nagler, Mr. Cutter.”
Patrick muttered an apology and hurried across the room. After some awkwardness of unknown etiquette on Patrick’s part, the two shook hands. “So glad you made it!” he said.
“Stonebrook was honored to be invited.”
“You have a marvelous reputation.”
“The foundation, you’re speaking of. My reputation is, as I’m sure you are aware, that of a loner. A recluse. That’s exaggerated, I assure you.”
“The Nostradamus of new technologies? You’re entitled to your eccentricities, Mr. Nagler. We’re happy to have you. You’re in my wife’s study. Did you know that?”
“Her study?” the man asked. He smiled. “Good God, how embarrassing. I was looking for a place to sit down is all.”
“You found one, but maybe you’d prefer something a little closer to the party? Or if you want some solitude, I can send a waiter.”
“No, please,” Nagler said. “I’ll rejoin the party with pleasure.”
“I heard about your dog, and I’m gravely sorry for your loss. I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. We’re looking into some possible remedies.”
“It’s kind of you, but don’t trouble yourself. I’m pursuing some options. I’m not bad with a cane, if you excuse mistaking a study for the dining room.”
Cutter laughed and then helped the man to the door, turning him toward the noise of the reception. “If you’ll excuse me…,” he said.
“Pleased to meet you,” Nagler said, heading toward the din.
Patrick headed a few steps toward the north staircase when something pulled at him and he reentered the study. It was narrow and long. Not easily mistaken for a dining room that sat twenty-eight. He couldn’t identify what bothered him about Nagler’s explanation, but it was enough to draw him to the far side of his wife’s desk and next to the chair where Nagler had sat. Now he realized what had called him back: the reflection of the computer screen in the window behind h
er chair. It should have displayed the screen saver: a photo of Bald Mountain in winter. Instead, it showed the Windows home screen.
The screen saver only left the screen if the keyboard was touched or the mouse moved.
Nagler could have bumped it, he supposed. Gnawed at by lost time, he took one last look before returning to his search for Danny.
But a nagging sensation remained: How had Nagler bumped the keyboard or mouse, given that both were at the far end of the desk?
Twenty-five
A s Walt followed Dryer and Shaler out of the living room and into the sumptuous library, he caught a brief glimpse of the blind man, Rafe Nagler, just leaving by the front door. It reminded him to try to find Nagler a loaner sight dog.
“So…Walt…what is it?” Liz asked, once Dryer had pushed the door shut. She sat down heavily in a leather chair and rubbed her right calf.
Walt glanced over at Dryer, who returned an unsympathetic look. The photos weighed heavily in Walt’s back pocket.
“We have evidence, Your Honor, of a horrific killing in Salt Lake City. It makes me wonder if we can provide for your safety.”
“Adam?”
“I feel differently but promised the sheriff face time with you.”
“Of course,” she said. Giving her attention to Walt immediately soured Dryer.
Walt reviewed the discovery of the body at the Salt Lake airport, describing it as a gruesome murder but avoiding anything too graphic per his arrangement with Dryer. He finished by saying, “There’s a possibility this ties in to the most recent threat.”
“There is no evidence connecting the two.”
Walt countered, “A possible suspect was followed by a TSA agent to the E concourse, where he subsequently disappeared. The first flight leaving that concourse was bound for Sun Valley, Your Honor.”
Her eyes tightened and fell away from Walt to an unfixed stare. “I see.” As she regained composure she looked up at Dryer, who wouldn’t look directly at her.
“We met that flight,” Walt said, “having received this intelligence in advance, and failed to identify a suspect matching the description we’d been given. But I should caution: That doesn’t mean he wasn’t on that flight.”
“It’s a lot to process,” she said.
Walt said, “Evaluation of an event like this can take weeks. I’m told the FBI has seized security video from the airport that might have helped us. Anticipate a wrestling match with Homeland over those tapes.”
“We’re heading into a weekend,” Dryer reminded, “and that doesn’t help us any.”
“So there’s no way to know who this dead man was, or why he was killed?” she asked.
Walt suggested two possibilities: one, that the intelligence intercept had been a ruse and that the target of the contract was now dead; two, that the dead man was killed because he’d recognized the killer or had seen something he shouldn’t have.
“Or,” she said, “I can hear it in your voice, Walt. Come on. I’m a big girl.”
One of Shaler’s handlers knocked on the library door, but Dryer took care of it. He glowered at Walt and tapped his wristwatch, out of sight of Shaler.
“There’s always the possibility this murder was a warning,” Walt said.
“How so?” She looked horrified.
“A message to you-to us-to let us know how serious they are, how professional, how capable. They’re telling you not to run, not to announce your candidacy.”
“Speculation!” Dryer interrupted.
“I asked him to speculate,” Liz Shaler countered. “Intimidation?” she asked Walt.
“Your Honor,” Walt said, “I have no doubt that between Agent Dryer and me we can put a screen around you at the various functions this weekend. But none of us can absolutely guarantee your safety. This person killed inside an airport-about as secure a facility as you can get these days. All I’m saying is, if you’re having any reservations about announcing your candidacy, you might want to change things up-hold a press conference sooner rather than later. Move the announcement back to New York. If there is a killer out there, it’ll throw him off.”
“There you are!” Patrick Cutter announced as he charged through the door. He dismissed Walt and Dryer without so much as a glance. “Been looking for you everywhere.”
“A little business to attend to,” Liz Shaler said. She looked over at Walt and he saw apology on her face.
Cutter’s arrival had slammed her back into the reality of her headlining his coveted conference. He wondered what it felt like to be drawn between power and money and one’s personal safety. He got his answer more quickly than he wanted.
“Well,” she said, pulling herself up out of the chair, but slowly, as if suddenly more heavy or painful. “I’ll count on you to keep me up on any developments, Walt. Day or night, okay?”
“Smoky-backroom deals?” Patrick Cutter said in his obligatory sarcasm.
“There’s been a murder in Salt Lake that has all the markings of a professional hit.” Walt’s voice was filled with frustration.
“Well, good,” Cutter said, without missing a beat. “We must have been given bad information. What a relief.” With a penetrating look, he challenged first Dryer, then Walt, and finally Shaler to contradict him.
Walt was about to when Liz Shaler caught his eye and silently called him off.
“Who needs a drink?” Cutter asked, ever the jovial host. “I’m buying.” He laughed at his own joke, took Liz Shaler by the elbow, and led her to the door before Walt gathered his courage.
As Cutter opened the door, there stood Stuart Holms, about to knock. For a moment tension filled the short space between Holms and Shaler.
“Your Honor,” Holms said.
“Mr. Holms,” Shaler returned.
“I know we’ve had our issues,” Holms said. “I was just wondering if we might get a minute together? I would hope we could both put the past behind us and keep an open mind toward the future.”
“From what I read in the press,” Liz Shaler said, “the past is hardly behind us. You’ve made your opinions of me abundantly clear.”
“I’d like to discuss that.”
Another palpable silence fell between them. “Let’s all get a drink!” Cutter moved her through the door. “Come on, Stu-let’s get this worked out.”
Liz glanced back at Walt furtively, still outwardly apologetic. With the music and the drone of excited conversation entering the room like a wave, Walt found himself making a parallel to Marie Antoinette’s lowering her head into the guillotine.
Three clocks tolled throughout the house within a few seconds of one another: 8 P.M.
He was late for dinner.
Twenty-six
W alt joined his father at a table in the near corner of the Pioneer Saloon’s restaurant, just below a wall display of barbed wire. Jerry sat with his back to a pair of rawhide snowshoes. The tabletop was sealed in so many coats of polyurethane that it looked like a piece of amber.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“Nothing new.”
A bouncy waitress arrived. Walt ordered a house salad and ribs; his father, a bowl of corn chowder, a thick cut of prime rib, and another Scotch.
Jerry, already looking drunk, indicated a copy of The Express Weekender he’d been reading-a seasonal supplement to the town’s weekly paper. “This just in: You’ve got birds shitting in your county dog pound and a cougar snacking on yellow Lab mountain dogs. The Wild West certainly offers challenging crimes.”
Walt had no desire to mention Salt Lake and start an argument. “Beats working for a living!”
“You should patch it up with Gail for the sake of the kids.”
“Gail is where she should be, Dad. Leave it alone.”
“She’s your wife.”
“Was. The truth of the matter is, she was a great wife, a terrific wife, but a lousy mother. She never rose to the job, and knew she never would. Say what you want, but some women aren’t cut out for it, just as s
ome guys aren’t. And she’s one of them. It was never going to work.”
“This is you talking.”
“She’d tell you the same thing, I promise.”
“It’s going to wreck the kids,” Jerry mumbled, trying to sip Scotch at the same time.
“Believe it or not, they’re way better than they were. Now when they see her it’s for a few hours, a half day at most, and she can handle that just fine. Thrives. She’d grown gloomy and short-tempered. It was a bad scene.”
“She’s your wife.”
“I know it violates your Ozzie and Harriet sensibilities, Dad, but it’s working. Leave it alone. If it ain’t broke-”
“But it is broke.”
“No, it’s not. And why we go around on this every time we talk, I don’t know. What’s with that?”
Five minutes passed in silence. Walt didn’t hear the nearby conversations, or the music, or the guys behind the grill calling out orders-only a droning whine in his ears that the beer would not quiet. His father’s voice saying, She’s your wife.
“Why the end run this afternoon? Why cut me out like that?” Walt said. “How can that possibly help anything?”
“You took that all personal. It wasn’t like that.”
“You can’t stand the thought of me running this, can you?”
“I never said that.”
A second Scotch was delivered, along with the salad and soup. Jerry ignored the soup.
“If she made the announcement early,” Walt said, “it might help.”
“You’ve had protection experience?” Jerry found this amusing. “Save your energy for this cougar.”
Another silence descended. Their meals were delivered.
“Is it so impossible that we all might actually work together?” Walt suggested.
“Is that your experience talking?”
“Where’s this coming from? What did I do to deserve this?”
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