by Joseph Flynn
He saw McGill, smiled, and said, “Mon ami.”
The reporter was about to say more, but the rest of McGill’s entourage crowded into the room, and Durand fell silent. He regarded Gabbi appreciatively, but his eyes came to linger on the handcuffed Diana Martel. He examined her at length. She bore the inspection stoically, someone who’d been through the exercise too many times to remember.
Growing bored, the stripper asked, “Est-ce que je peux fumer?” May I smoke?
Odo replied, “Seulement si vous ètes en feu.” Only if you’re on fire.
Diana gave Odo a dirty look, but Durand had enjoyed Odo’s riposte, and the stripper’s reaction only made it funnier for him. He laughed aloud, revealing several broken teeth. Diana recoiled from Durand’s gruesome jollity.
Better and better, McGill thought.
Pruet and Gabbi watched impassively.
Switching to English, Diana asked McGill, “Why have you brought me here?”
“This gentleman,” McGill said, declining to name the reporter, “had an unfortunate encounter with a friend of yours, The Undertaker.”
Diana shrank from the name, but immediately bumped into Odo, and moved quickly away from him, bringing her near Durand’s bedside. The reporter looked up at the woman and, despite his injuries, was excited to have her so close. Maybe he liked women in handcuffs.
McGill said to Durand, “Will you please tell Ms. Martel what happened to you?”
The reporter nodded slowly, as if reluctant to visit the terrifying memory. Some of the hesitation had to be real, McGill thought. Even so, he also saw a flicker of glee in Durand’s eyes. The reporter knew he’d been given a starring role, and he meant to make the most of it.
He began in English. “The boom came first, a sound like a blast of heavy artillery, as the downstairs door was smashed free of its hinges. Tortured creaks and moans came from the staircase. Each step cried out as it fell under the weight of the monster’s heels; each wail brought the beast ever closer to me. Then, even before the door to my apartment was battered to splinters, in rushed the smell: the stink of an open grave occupied by a rotting corpse…”
Diana Martel, her face deathly pale, retreated, backing up once more against Odo. She remained pinned fast to the Corsican as Durand continued his narrative in French. McGill caught only a few words, but the tone was unmistakable. The reporter was doing his best to scare the stripper witless and succeeding brilliantly.
Likely for McGill’s benefit, Durand concluded as he began, in English.
“Then with the monster’s hands grasping for me, only inches away, I flew from the window, sure the embrace of the Grim Reaper would be far kinder than the crushing clutches I had so narrowly escaped.”
Reliving the moment of high terror, an involuntary tremor ran through Durand, making his plaster encased arms and legs bounce alarmingly in their slings. The reporter, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a silent scream, had succeeded in horrifying himself.
Causing Diana Martel to scream and turn to be comforted.
But Odo was not about to provide succor. She sidestepped quickly and laid her head on McGill’s shoulder. He patted her back gently, his manner paternal, his voice filled with concern.
“If you help us, we’ll lock this guy up. Somewhere he’ll never leave, never be able to pay you a visit. Because, you know, unless he’s locked up, he’ll have to dispose of everyone who could testify against him.”
The stripper looked up at McGill, scared but already starting to calculate. In her world, there was a bargain to be made in every situation, even the most desperate. She was looking for an angle. McGill interrupted her silent scheming.
“I’m just a visitor here,” he said. “I can’t make any promises, except this: Things will go better for you if you cooperate than if you don’t.”
Platitudes were all very well, but Diana Martel wasn’t about to roll over for a flic, American or not. Not until McGill gently turned her around for another look at Durand.
“Play it cagey,” he said, “and who knows, you might get out of jail soon. Now, how do you think that would make us feel? Maybe as if there were no point in going after The Undertaker. Then where would you be? Possibly without even a window to throw yourself from.”
McGill felt the woman’s shoulders tremble under his hands.
He asked softly, “What is The Undertaker’s real name?”
The whispered answer was only a heartbeat in coming. “Etienne Burel.”
With the dam breached, McGill turned the woman over to Pruet and Odo. Things would go better now in their native language. Pruet began speaking quietly to Diana, one conspirator to another, as he led her from the room. Odo shut the door behind them.
The president’s henchman turned back to the reporter.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Durand drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I will need a moment to compose myself, m’sieur. Then I have something I must tell you. Something I must show you.”
10
“You remember Pierre?” Durand asked McGill.
Gabbi had just returned to the reporter’s hospital room after conducting a successful fifteen-minute search for a DVD player and a television. She had rolled a stand holding the two pieces of electronics to the right of Durand’s bed, made the connections between them, and plugged the works into an electrical outlet.
“The guy on the motorcycle?” McGill asked. “The one you had spying on Ms. Casale and me outside that café?”
Durand offered a small nod. “Pierre is what an English reporter would call his legman. You have such people in America?”
“Yes,” McGill said, “though sometimes we call them go-fers.”
Durand frowned and turned to Gabbi. “Gophers?”
“D’aller pour,” she explained.
The reporter smiled. “Très bon. Pierre is my go-fer. This morning he brought me something I had not known existed.” He turned to Gabbi. “It is under my pillow, if you please.”
She stepped forward and gently placed her hand under the pillow, came out with a DVD in a paper sleeve. Crudely printed on the sleeve were the words: Enterrement numéro un.
“Burial number one?” McGill asked.
Gabbi and Durand both nodded.
The reporter added, “Pierre said this came by courier to my office yesterday. He opened the package only this morning. Watched the disk. Brought it straight to me. He wanted to call the police. Pierre is young.”
“It’s that bad: what’s on the disk?” Gabbi asked.
“I have not seen it, but Pierre says it shows The Undertaker killing a man in some sort of unsanctioned fight. There is no sound, for which Pierre was grateful, but the titles explained both parties understood in advance that the fight was to the death. The other fellow was given the opportunity to deliver the first five strikes without response. If he had won, he would have been given ten thousand euros.”
McGill thought about that and shook his head.
“My conclusion also, m’sieur,” Durand said. “Death is the point at which such barbarity must ultimately arrive. There is, of course, an underlying message in the timing of this disk’s release.”
The president’s henchman had already reached the same conclusion.
“It’s a warning,” McGill said. “Back off or this could be you.”
“Exactement.”
“Are you sure you want to see this, Arno?” Gabbi asked.
“Upon reflection, no. I have had enough excitement today.”
“You mind if we take a quick look?” McGill asked.
“If you like. Then perhaps the disk should go, as Pierre suggested, to the magistrate.”
“Sure,” McGill agreed. “Just as soon as we’re done.”
He turned the stand and the TV screen away from the bed. Durand closed his eyes. His lips moved silently. A prayer, perhaps. Thanking God he’d had the courage to jump and the luck to survive.
Gabbi slipped the disk in the mac
hine and pressed the play button.
She and McGill both shared the same thought.
One man’s warning was another’s scouting report.
Georgetown
11
Sitting in Jim McGill’s office, Sweetie felt like Mother Superior weighing the fates of two malcontents and a motorhead: Deke, Welborn and Leo. Serious matters weighed on the minds of the first two; Leo, unruffled by being called back to work, was absorbed by something he was reading in Road & Track, nodding his head, smiling, even uttering a soft, “zoom.”
“Leo,” she said, “what I need from you is reassurance that if either Deke or Welborn gets in trouble and needs a fast get away, you can scoop them up.”
“Of course, I can,” Leo said, not looking up.
“And no one will catch you.”
Now, Leo looked at Sweetie. “Not unless it’s Dale Jr. driving number 88. Even then, I like my chances. He doesn’t have the street experience I do.”
“Thank you, Leo. Why don’t you wait in the outer office where our conversation won’t disturb your reading.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Leo said, leaving, his nose back in his magazine.
“All right, gentlemen. You can tell me what’s bothering you or you can tell me to mind my own business, but I need to know if I can count on you.”
Deke and Welborn nodded in unison. She could count on them.
Sweetie was unpersuaded.
She looked at one and then the other and asked, “Okay, who wants to share?”
Welborn started. “Kira called from the White House. She told me an envelope containing documents that have a bearing on our investigation has been sent from London and will be available for pickup later today.”
Sweetie said, “London? One of the places Calanthe Bao visits regularly?”
Welborn nodded.
“But Jim is in Paris, not London. So who—
Deke said. “Maybe the president found a few minutes to lend a hand.”
The special agent was kidding, but Sweetie didn’t find the idea that farfetched.
Welborn, however, shook his head. “It didn’t coming from the president.”
“How do you know?”
“My mother called me this morning. She asked if it would be all right if she brought my father to my wedding.” Off Deke’s puzzled look, Welborn explained. “I’ve never met my father; I didn’t even know his name until today.”
Deke nodded, and as if it explained everything said, “Families.”
“Yeah. My mother told me my father was sending something helpful for me. And, oh, by the way, the queen won’t be able to make the wedding.”
“Queen?” Deke asked. “Of England?”
“That would be the one.”
“Maybe, if you have a good band, things will still work out,” Sweetie told him. “Anything else on your mind?”
“Kira heard from Father Nguyen. Something so important—she didn’t say what—she had to go see him.”
That tidbit hit home for Sweetie. Piqued Deke’s interest as well. What was the priest up to and how did it involve the vice-president’s niece? Sweetie had been thinking of going to see Bishop O’Menehy before she visited Father Nguyen, but now she thought she would reverse the order.
“What about you, special agent?” she asked Deke. “What’s your problem?”
“I heard from my mother’s lawyer. He wants me to come in and talk about taxes.”
“You owe the IRS?”
“I didn’t yesterday. But my mother transferred the titles to her house, her Florida condo, and her car to me.”
Sweetie and Welborn exchanged a look.
Sweetie asked, “I didn’t notice, but is your mother in failing health?”
Deke laughed. Then he said, “My mother is on the lam.”
“What?” Welborn asked.
“Back to Vietnam,” Deke said. “No extradition.”
“Your mother was our client,” Sweetie said. “If she’s skipped, I suppose we could stay here and play cards.”
“Just forget about the people who shot me?” Deke asked.
“Well, there is that. If you feel strongly about it, I suppose we could carry on.”
“Mom knew when we got close to the bad guys we’d find out she was in business with them,” Deke said. “She planned all along to be far away when Bao and Ricky get the chop.”
Sweetie nodded. She saw things the same way.
And Welborn echoed Deke’s earlier sentiment. “Families.”
12
Ten minutes after the two federal agents left the offices of McGill Investigations, Inc., just as Sweetie was about to make her own departure, Putnam called. He said Deke had asked him to follow up on that detail Margaret had mentioned when they were last together.
Sweetie said, “You mean—”
“Yeah. The kids living in the other houses purportedly owned by Bao’s thugs, they all go to parochial schools, too.”
Putnam, in his thorough, lawyerly fashion, provided Sweetie with the names of all the kids, their parents, and the schools they attended.
Sweetie then tested the degree of Putnam’s attention to detail.
“Did you happen to make note of any school that has a nun as its principal?”
What with the shortage of young women in the Catholic Church who possessed a religious vocation these days, she knew that was a reach.
But Putnam had not only checked that point, he’d come up with one.
“Remind me to buy you dinner,” Sweetie told him. “Somewhere fancy.”
“In your company, Margaret, a hot dog stand becomes Lutèce.”
Sweetie had heard of the famous French restaurant in New York, of course, but…
“Hasn’t that place closed?” she asked.
“So it has. Well, you’ll just have to come upstairs and let me cook for you.”
And she thought, all right, maybe it was time. He’d come down to her place to share the Rice Krispies Treats the White House had sent over — still warm — and been a gentleman.
“Okay,” Sweetie said. Maybe they’d take things further than a goodnight kiss.
Putnam said goodbye, but before he clicked off she heard him shout, “Yippee!”
It was only when Sweetie got down to her car that she remembered: She hadn’t challenged Deke to arm wrestle with her. Initially, she’d been reluctant to do so in front of Welborn and Leo. Then hearing the news Deke and Welborn had to share, and revising their plans, she’d gotten distracted. Now, it was too late.
Ah, well. Some things you just had to take on faith.
Falls Church, VA
13
Sweetie rang the doorbell of the modest apartment on John Marshall Drive and wasn’t surprised when the woman who answered the door wasn’t wearing a habit. Not many nuns did these days. Sweetie wondered, though, if the dispensation of traditional garb hadn’t been one of the reasons why Catholic girls were less inclined to dedicate themselves to a religious life.
“May I help you?” the woman asked.
She was a strawberry blonde, her hair cut short. She was slender but not toned, and wore no make-up. She was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a Mount Saint Mary College sweatshirt. Sweetie put her age in the neighborhood of fifty.
“My name is Margaret Mary Sweeney. I’m a former novice. I used to be a cop in Chicago and Winnetka, Illinois. Now, I’m a private investigator in Washington.”
The woman smiled broadly, taking ten years off her appearance.
“Well, don’t you have the colorful history, sister?”
“I suppose I do,” Sweetie said. “Are you Sister Angela Edwards? They told me at the convent I could find you here.”
“You found me, all right. But like you, I’ve left the convent.”
“You’re no longer the principal of Saint John the Baptist School?”
“No. They didn’t tell you that?” Angela Edwards smile was much tighter this time. “I suppose that’s to be expected. But you’re a surpri
se. I’ve met some police officers before, but you’re my first private investigator. I thought people in your line of work always wore fedoras.”
Sweetie smiled. Former Sister Angela was having fun with her.
“Only in Bogart movies,” Sweetie said.
“But you would like to ask me some questions?”
“If you have the time, and don’t mind.”
Angela Edwards’ smile grew large again.
“Well, this is certainly an interesting way to begin my secular life. Please come in.”
14
Aside from a card table and two metal folding chairs, her bed and a print of the Sacred Heart on the wall, Angela had yet to furnish her new home.
“Would you like some refreshments?” she asked. “I can offer you lemonade, Coca-Cola or Kool-Aid, and your choice of chocolate chip or macaroon cookies, both store-bought, I’m afraid.”
Sweetie gave the former nun an inquiring look.
“Some of my former students have been bringing me care packages the past two weeks. I must admit I haven’t been out much, certainly not to shop for groceries, but I do like to take walks as the day begins. There’s something reassuring about seeing the sun come up.”
Sweetie said, “A sign God is still in his heavens.”
“Yes, exactly,” Angela said with a smile. “May I ask you a question?”
Anticipating her, Sweetie said, “I left because of a boy.”
“He called on you at the convent? Came to plead his love beneath your window at night?”
“No, neither of those things. In fact, I never saw him again. He died. But I couldn’t get him out of my mind.”
Angela took Sweetie’s hand in hers. “I’m so sorry.” She paused before asking, “Did you ever marry?”
“No. I … I think the Lord played a little trick on me for leaving the religious life. He let me meet a man I care for more than any other, but I could never see relating to him in any way other than platonically: as a friend and a colleague. But in the past year, I’ve met a very unlikely guy who just might amount to something more.”