“Jesus!” Tony covered his face. “Then Frank couldn’t have done it.”
“Obviously not.”
“What an awful world.” Tony looked beseechingly at Harry. “Who could have done such a thing?”
Harry shrugged. “I called back here around seven to see if you’d heard from Katharine. Whoever answered the phone said you’d left with a female client around six.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed for an instant, then he sat back and sighed. “True enough.” Harry was amazed to see him blush. “I didn’t want this to get out, old man, but I’m having an affair with one of the partners’ wives.”
Harry remained silent.
“That’s who I was with.” Tony flashed a smile. “I’m sure you understand.”
Harry refused to be drawn in by his boyish charm. He studied McKeown’s guileless expression.
Tony laughed. “That’s what I meant about getting involved in your partners’ lives.”
At last Harry spoke. “Katharine’s badly cut up. Her neck was almost broken.”
“What kind of cuts?” Tony asked.
“Similar to those on the bodies of the paralegals at your firm.”
“You mean Deirdre and Linda? You think there’s a connection?”
“I certainly hope so. I wouldn’t want to think more than one person was doing this.”
Tony rose swiftly. “Indeed. Do the police know?” he asked.
“Of course. It’s hard to miss the similarity.”
The secretary tapped on the door and entered. “Mr. McKeown? Your overseas caller is on the line. Do you want to take it in your other office?”
“Listen, old man, I’d better take this. Mind waiting a few moments?” Flashing a smile, Tony opened a door to a small interior office. “Be back in five minutes. Just relax here.”
When he was gone, Harry swiftly moved to the desk with the files. The tabs read Chin/Zaimir/St Timothy’s rezoning: Chin sale of 6 properties surrounding Church and Deighton lands. All the property purchases he had completed for Chin had been flipped to Zaimir.
Harry thought he heard McKeown laugh in the interior office. Swiftly, he closed the files and resumed his seat. Moments passed. Harry rose and started on the next files.
Chin offer on Deighton lands and church. After Harry had refused, Chin had used McKeown to make the offer on Marjorie’s house. No doubt all parcels of land would soon be owned by Zaimir.
McKeown’s voice came from the outer office. The door remained closed. Harry opened the last file: Offshore Transfers. What possible explanation could he give, if McKeown walked in?
Lists of fund transfers squiggled down the pages in tiny columns: the slosh of money back and forth at ever-escalating prices. Chin was reporting money-laundering to Tony. Harry glanced over his shoulder. He turned the page. At the top of the first column, he read: Cheney, Arpin/Zaimir/Buffalo #487693. Heading the second column was CCJ #690566. His firm trust account.
Stephen was right. “Dirty money from drugs, prostitution, and porn—you name it—flows into the country from all over the world. It goes into banks, trust companies. And to lawyers and accountants, some of whom are innocent, unsuspecting dupes; others are in on the game.”
There it was—the proof that he was a dupe. More likely, an idiot.
The door began creaking open. Swiftly, Harry pocketed the page and resumed his seat. Either it was incriminating evidence or something very useful for his defence.
Tony bustled in. Harry resumed his seat.
“Sorry, old man, to keep you waiting.” He smiled broadly.
Thank God he’d not been seen, thought Harry.
Tony continued to stand at his desk. The meeting was over. Harry gathered up his case.
“Thanks for dropping in, Harry, and keeping me posted. I’ll send some flowers to her. What hospital is she in?”
“Toronto General.”
Tony smiled genially. Harry had come unarmed. He was being shown the door.
“Let me give you my card, Harry. It’s got my home number on it. Please call anytime.” Tony moved to his desk. Harry followed.
As McKeown was searching for a card, Harry glanced down at his agenda, which was lying open. On it, he saw an intricate design of a rose petal.
McKeown’s eyes dropped to the book. Swiftly, he shut it. Harry was acutely conscious of his own breathing and the rough feel of his clothing on his skin. McKeown was the Florist.
He looked up at Tony and into his eyes. True monsters had no special quality, Harry thought calmly. The man possessed no strange and frightening aspect, setting him apart from the rest of humanity. If anything, he exuded charismatic charm. Brilliant, handsome, engaging, he stood at the pinnacle of the legal world. But Harry could see at a glance that some fundamental building block of a human being was absent. Having no centre, the Florist was a jumble of sharp-edged jigsaw pieces from a dozen different puzzles. Where humanity should have been, Harry saw only the chaos and banality of evil.
“Are you all right, Harry?” Tony was smiling uncertainly.
“Of course. Why?”
“God! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Tony handed him his card. “Listen, do you want some water?” He reached for a bowl on his credenza. “Have a hard candy to suck on.”
Harry shook his head. “No…thanks. I’m fine.” He watched as the lawyer popped a candy into his mouth.
“They’re very good. Called Butterscotch Bits.” Tony continued to hold out the bowl. “I have a confession to make,” he said solemnly.
“What?” Harry caught his breath.
A sly smile crossed Tony’s face. “I must confess I have an incurable sweet tooth.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Tony laughed, revealing a row of brilliant, white teeth.
Harry steadied himself and glanced once again at the agenda, now closed, where he had seen the rose-petal drawing.
“See? I cannot resist indulging in innocent pleasures.” Tony popped another candy in his mouth. He clapped Harry on the arm, propelling him toward the door. Tony slipped on his glove, and the two men shook hands.
The Florist was also the mastermind of the money-laundering fraud.
Harry was determined to go to the police, but first he wanted to see Katharine. He wanted to see those ugly floral patterns swirling on her cheek. Although there was no law against drawing flowers, the design was sickeningly familiar.
As he headed off to see Katharine, Harry was left with one thought. Chin had been fronting for McKeown all along, and poor Frank was just the bagman. McKeown was the Florist. At last he knew who had murdered poor Marjorie.
CHAPTER 37
After Harry left, Tony shut himself in his inner office and gripped the edge of his desk. Intense pain always preceded his pleasure. Zigzag golden light flashed above his right eye; white fire burned at the base of his skull. Sometimes voices came from nowhere, followed by images of women, almost always women. Their shrieking inflamed his sense of cruelty and power and drove his pleasure deep into a world far beyond common lust. As the lights subsided, their moans grew fainter. When the visions departed, he was exhausted, and thought slipped away like water through fingers.
He was surprised to see that his legal pad was covered with intricately drawn flowers. The pen had been used with such force that the paper was cut. Bleak puzzlement overcame him. Only a deranged being would draw such things. Flowers were for funerals.
Tony’s mother had died when he was ten. At the funeral parlor, he had hid in a corner, but his uncle had dragged him across the room to the casket.
“Show respect for your mother, boy. Say good-bye to her. Give her one last kiss.” Shoved toward the casket, Tony tried to cling to a chair. Figures dressed in black drifted about him. He peeked over the edge of the casket and saw a wax doll.
“It’s not my mother!” he cried out. But of course, it was.
The black figures closed about him and chorused, “Kiss! Kiss! Give her a kiss!” His stomach lurched with
the sweet, sickening smell of banks of flowers. When he broke free, the black figures floated off in disgust. He took his pen-knife from his pocket and with careful artistry, etched a single rose petal on the gleaming oak casket. With his tiny, perfect claw, he touched her stone-cold hand and traced another petal.
Mother always wanted him to hide his deformity, but he was secretly proud of his claw. It set him apart from the ordinary and gave him a sense of power.
To clear the memory, Tony shook his head. He stretched, and wandered toward the vast expanse of glass window. Benny’s men had reported that Frank Sasso was dead. Tony could not abide deceit. Frank had stolen from Benny’s cash deliveries to Chin. The detailed description of Frank’s wounds gave Tony a jolt of pleasure. He imagined Frank’s dingy office tinged in red. Blood always fascinated him.
Donnie’s pale and wavering form floated upward in his mind like a nagging, worrisome spirit. He could be real trouble. He had seen him with Frank at the old lady’s house.
His private telephone rang.
“Yes?”
“The kid’s hiding in the house, Mr. McKeown.”
“Good. Leave him for me,” he said softly.
He would deal with the boy immediately. Lounging back on the sofa, he tried to recall all the details. Frank was colossally stupid, but he had been the perfect pawn. The world would not miss him. He had used Frank and the kid to get close enough to dispose of the old lady. It had been a necessary killing. She had gotten in the way.
It was hard to remember all the women, but the killing of the housekeeper and the two Cheney, Arpin women stood out as supremely gratifying. His excitement had mounted sharply as blood spurted. Those bitches asked for it. Deirdre and Linda knew too much about the land deals and asked too many questions. In a way, they were also necessary. But with the skill of an artist, he had lured them onward to their most suitable fates. Blood spurted.
Only Donnie could place him at the scene. Although his killing was necessary, perhaps he could derive some pleasure from it. Another thought intruded. Some quality in the boy had caught his interest, perhaps a special intelligence that separated him from the commonplace.
Tony pressed his fingertips into his temples. That bitch, Mrs. Katharine Rowe, deserved it most. She tried to wheedle from him information about the offer. A perfect victim, she believed it was a love tryst at the hotel. With her seductive smile, she strutted with her long legs. She tried to save herself by seducing him with mere sex. In agony, she had lain crumpled on the bed. His mark was on her cheek. Harry tried to convince him she was not dead, but he was no fool. She was dead. Not even the undertaker’s make-up would ever conceal those finely etched petals.
Tony determined to derive pleasure from this evening. Slow and careful preparations were key to his enjoyment. Having only killed women before, the prospect of killing a male was tantalizing.
The private elevator carried him down to the underground garage. He waved to Felix, the security guard, in his booth.
“Knocking off early, Mr. McKeown?” asked Felix, grinning and looking up from his lunch. Years of Felix’s life had been wasted, crammed into his little box to operate the cash register. There never had been a climax of sheer terror demanding bravery or daring. The world was filled with dead souls like Felix, whose lives were a long, unbroken string of gray days. To be alive, a soul had to seek challenge and respond with great imagination and daring, otherwise it would shrivel into a useless appendage.
But was it wrong to kill a child? The complexities of the question intrigued him. Should a first draft of a manuscript be destroyed? Should a sketch for a painting be dismissed as crude and without merit? A simple tune could develop into a concerto of stirring beauty. Such questions plagued the artist. At what point should a life be judged worthy?
He stopped in front of his red Jaguar. Carefully, finger by finger, he slid on his leather driving gloves. Unlocking the door of the car, he paused to admire its sleekness. After several years of ownership, the leather interior remained spotless. A flick of the wrist with the key, and the Jaguar responded with the low growl he loved. Grinning, he saluted Felix, who strolled in front of his box as if on a leash.
At street level, Tony turned sharply onto a deserted Richmond Street and into the glare of the sun hanging low in the sky. Pleasure crept through him as the Jaguar responded smoothly. Caressing the steering wheel, he turned south, into the shadows of tall buildings on University Avenue, toward his harborside condominium.
McKeown’s condo was on the twenty-fourth floor, facing the lake. He hated clutter, so the living room was furnished in the minimalist fashion. The color scheme mirrored the shades of pink, blue, gray, and charcoal in the sky, which blended with the shimmering expanse of water. Tonight, he studied the skyline to catch each transition of light and color. Later lights would begin to twinkle and flash at the island airport, not a half-mile offshore.
It was five-thirty. A timetable formed in his brain. He should be at the Deighton house by seven. With deliberation, he walked along the hallway, past the den. Stopping, he checked the door. As always, it was safely locked. Part of his ritual of pleasure was a visit to the den.
As he entered his bedroom, the image of Donnie, pale and scrawny, arose in his mind. The skin on his face was his most striking feature. It was whitish, almost waxy, and pockmarked. He shuddered at the prospect of the rest of the boy’s skin being cold and sweaty. Women’s skin was soft and warm. It bunched and bruised. Donnie’s neck would be hard and bony, like a chicken’s. Although he lusted for the kill, he struggled for dispassionate consideration of Donnie’s fate. Controlling the balance of reason and passion was essential, otherwise tragic consequences could occur.
Tony stood before his racks of suits and shirts. Reveling in finery, he caressed one sleeve and then another. For him, lack of appreciation of art indicated a dead and withered soul. Watching himself in the mirror, he removed his trousers. He lined the creases up and hung them in the closet. His charcoal suit was a bit too dressy. He laid the soft gray flannel suit on the bed and selected a shirt with a thin pink stripe. Satisfied, he put on a terrycloth robe and went into the bathroom.
He thought of business. His scheme was deceptively simple. With funds brought in from Buffalo and Hong Kong, through Zaimir, he acquired blocks of land in prime locations across the city. But St. Timothy’s nearly upset the whole scheme. The archbishop wanted to sell the church to a legitimate and unrelated company. Of course their application to the rezoning committee had to be scuttled and one of his own companies brought in.
Naked, he stood before the mirror. Billows of steam rose from the shower and fogged his reflection into shadow. He addressed Mother.
“Does it surprise you, Mother, that most women find me very attractive? Despite my deformity, some have called me an Adonis. See my tiny, but perfect claw? You hated it and made me wash it repeatedly, as if cleanliness would erase an imperfection. But you are wrong, Mother. It is no imperfection. I am so marked as the one chosen to deliver judgment.”
He snatched a towel from the rack. “All right, Mother!” He turned on the shower, setting the water at full-blast and very hot. “I will tell you why Marjorie Deighton had to die. She symbolized the dull complacency of sheep. When she refused to sell, she called me a charlatan who would defile her city.” He flung his razor on the counter. “By God, I will trash those ancient structures erected by her bovine class. I will transform this city with cool, sleek lines.”
He stepped into the shower. Gasping in the hot water, he began to soap his face and neck. He spoke with calm patience. “The money is only the byproduct of my calling. The more lots we buy, the more money can be made clean. Don’t worry, Mother. The police have charged Chin with all of those murders. He will be convicted, and I will be free to deal with all the money.”
He began to chuckle. “That other lawyer, Harry Jenkins? The world is filled with dull souls who hunger for more, but have no idea how to get it. He has such limited vision that he c
annot comprehend what he really wants, much less what he needs. With his weakness, he made the perfect dupe. Besides, the internal audit department at Cheney’s was asking too many questions. We had to use the trust account of a truly honest innocent.”
He reached for the shampoo and began to lather. “What’s that word you’re using? Compassion? Of course I know what it means. But what does that specific emotion feel like? Am I not compassionate when I release a soul from the tyranny of a corrupt body? Why is that not compassion?”
He stepped from the shower and slammed the door. “What good is compassion to me? I have work to do and judgments to make. I will not shirk my duty, nor be sidetracked by such vague considerations.”
Wrapped in a towel, Tony returned to the bedroom. He remembered the Deighton house clearly. It was similar to the one he had grown up in, but hers was much bigger and finer. Since Mrs. Rowe had forgotten to get her key back, he could walk right in. The house had all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies—excellent hiding places for the boy.
If Donnie possessed cunning, shrewdness, and feral instinct, a most interesting evening lay ahead. Brushing talc on his chest, he wondered if he would be clawed. The last desperate flailing was the best part. There wasn’t much to Donnie. He could probably let it go on a bit longer than usual. If the boy failed him, he could, at a moment of his own choosing, easily slice into that meager throat. Either the boy would prove himself superior or die.
Finally dressed, he still had time to visit the den. With a small gold key in hand, he strolled down the hallway to the den. He turned the key. Silently, the door swung open.
Anyone entering the room might think he had stepped into a small warehouse of fine china. So stunning was the contrast with the simple, sleek style of the other rooms that anyone might believe he had mistakenly entered a room belonging to an entirely different person. Numerous tables, all laden with stacks of chinaware, were crowded together. The first impression was one of a jumble, but precise organization rapidly became apparent. The den was brimming.
In neat rows and categorized piles, dinner platters, bread and butter plates, teacups and saucers lined the tables. Several massive soup tureens squatted on various tables. All was laid out not with great imagination, but with a view to displaying wares for sale.
Conduct in Question Page 25