“I’m not playing at anything,” Mike said, his voice steady, but with an edge to it now. “And if I was, I wouldn’t be playing with you. As you said, I’m not that stupid. I don’t want much here, and mostly what I want is to keep my client out of your way. His dealings with Nassouli ended nearly two decades ago, and to the best of my knowledge he’s done nothing that would warrant your attention.
“Our only interest in Nassouli-in the whole investigation-relates to Nassouli’s personal files. And I’d think you’d be curious too. If Nassouli has the files, and you have Nassouli, then I’d think you’d want to know if he had a side business going. If he doesn’t have the files, then I’d think you’d want to know if someone-maybe on your team, or on Neary’s-had them and was up to no good. I’d like to work something out with you, Ms. DiPaolo, in a way that benefits us both, and protects my client. If you don’t want to do that… well, that’s unfortunate. But if that’s the case, then maybe your colleague in San Diego, Mr. Perez, would be interested.
“So, if you think you can make probable cause out of all that smoke-fine, take your shot. But if you do, I think you’ll be missing an opportunity. I think we both will. ”
The rain was loud on the window. Conaway and Katz looked at Mike with disbelief, and maybe a little admiration. Pell looked impatient and a little confused, wondering when the blood was going to flow. Shelly looked down at her fingers, still drumming on the table. She shook her head in wonder and finally spoke, in low tones.
“I don’t believe this. You son of a bitch, you’re trying to strong-arm me. You’ve got nothing to trade with, and you’re trying to strong-arm me. If nothing else, you’ve got balls, Metz.” She laughed harshly. Then she leaned forward and pointed at Mike. “Well, enjoy them while you can, asshole, ’cause by the end of the day, they’re going to be in my pocket. And you two,” she pointed at Neary and me, “I’m going to see if I can’t have your licenses tacked up on my wall by the end of the week- just for giggles.” We didn’t say anything. No one said anything, except Pell, who couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Now get out of here,” DiPaolo said, “I’ve got work to do.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“Very dramatic, that business with Perez,” I said to Mike. He, Neary, and I were in the lobby of One St. Andrews. Mike shrugged.
“Clutching at straws,” he said. We looked out at the rain and at the people crossing the plaza, leaning into the wind.
“I guess it could’ve been worse,” I said, though I wasn’t sure how. Neary helped me out.
“Yeah, there could’ve been gunfire.”
“We won’t know how bad it was until we see what DiPaolo does. It’s her play to call,” Mike said, buttoning his raincoat.
“She made her intentions pretty clear,” Neary said.
Mike shrugged again. “Maybe. I’ve got a meeting uptown. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.” Then he turned up his collar, opened his umbrella, and walked out into the rain. Neary and I looked at each other.
“You talk to your management?” I asked
“Yesterday,” he said.
“How’d they take it?”
“The possibility that someone in our shop could be involved in a blackmail scheme scared the shit out of them. Enough so they actually stopped to think, and sort of understood why I’d let you in the door. But the jury’s still out, and a lot will depend on how things go with DiPaolo.”
“They tell Parsons about it?” I asked.
“Not yet. They want to see what happens here first.” We were quiet.
“I’m sorry about all this, Tom,” I said after a while.
He held up his hand and shook his head, smiling ruefully. “I got to get to the office,” he said, and he belted his raincoat and walked out. I had no office, and at the moment I had no work, so I went home.
It was not quite eleven when I got back to my place. The shades were up on the tall windows, and as I stood before them the chill outside seemed to seep in through the glass, with the gray light and the boiling sound of the rain. My side ached terrifically under the elastic bandage.
The tension of the meeting had receded, and only weariness and an inchoate anger remained. I felt like someone had picked my pockets or slashed my tires. The case had been yanked out from under me, and I didn’t know by whom. But maybe I was too tired to do anything with my anger, even if it had a direction. Right now, all I wanted was to wrap myself in my coat and sit down and close my eyes and listen to the rain. And if it never stopped pouring, that was okay with me.
I shook my head. I’d been spending altogether too much time sitting in the dark lately. I got rid of my suit and tie and put on jeans, a turtleneck, a warm sweater, and waterproof boots. I clipped the Glock behind my back, found a waterproof shell, a long-billed hat, and my photos of Trautmann. Sometimes futile activity beats no activity at all.
Central Park wasn’t empty, but the people were few and far between, and most of them were walking unhappy-looking dogs. The trees were black and shiny, and the low spots had begun to flood. On the assumption that, if she were in the park, Faith Herman would’ve found some shelter on a day like today, I focused my search on places where a person could get in out of the rain. After two hours of squishing around, I found her.
The Delacorte Theatre is just south of the Great Lawn, right near the Turtle Pond-around where 81st Street would be if it kept on going through the park. The Delacorte is an outdoor venue, open only in summer, when the Public Theatre stages Shakespeare in the Park. I found Faith Herman, and her shopping cart, beneath the deep awning that shelters the Delacorte’s ticket windows. She was sorting cans. Her hair was just as wild, her face just as wrinkled, her blue sneakers just as dirty as when I’d seen her last. She ignored my approach, but looked up apprehensively when I stopped under the awning. The rain was loud, and I was nearly shouting when I spoke.
“Faith, it’s me-John March. Do you remember, we spoke in the park, a couple of weeks ago?” Her eyes darted around, and she looked scared and confused for a moment. Then recognition came.
“You’re that guy who kicked the shit out of those prick kids,” she said. She studied the side of my face. “Looks like somebody’s been kicking the shit out of you.”
“They’ve been trying, Faith,” I said. “I need you to look at something for me.” I took out three photos of Trautmann, two profiles and a full-face. “Have you seen this man before?” She was tentative, but she took them. She peered down at them for some time, then looked up and handed the photos back to me.
“That’s him,” she said.
“That’s who?”
“The fax guy. The guy who paid me to send it.”
“You’re sure?”
“That’s him, I tell you.” I let out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. She looked at me, expectantly.
“You need some cash?” I asked. She smiled. I gave her a hundred bucks. “Where can I reach you if I need to talk to you again? Where do you sleep?” She gave me the name of a shelter in the West 70s. She paused, and a shy look came across her face.
“ ’Course, that’s just where I leave my body at night,” she said. I didn’t speak, but I must have looked confused. She went on. “You know, when the nighttime comes, and I have to put my body someplace?” I must have looked stupid to her. “Jesus’ car-I can’t bring my body in Jesus’ car. So every night when Jesus comes for me, I need to leave it someplace. Then I get in and we can drive all over the city, and over to Rome and Winnipeg, Boise too. All over. It’s a real nice car-a big Lincoln, dark blue. Rides smooth. But you can’t bring your body in. And no newspapers, either.” She started sorting cans again. I stood there for a while, watching her, listening to water hit the awning, like a rain of stones.
It was nearly three when I got back home. I was cold and damp, despite my rain gear. I peeled off my clothes and unwound my bandage and stood under a hot shower for a long while. I thought about Faith Herman. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away-som
etimes all at once. Faith was nuts, at least some of the time, but enough to make her ID of Trautmann pretty much worthless to anyone but me. But what the hell-more than likely, it was all beside the point. I let the hot water beat down on my neck and shoulders.
I was just winding the elastic bandage around my ribs when the phone rang. Metz, I thought, and I pulled on a T-shirt and picked up. But it wasn’t Mike. It was a call from upstate. It was Donald Stennis.
“Get you in the middle of something?” he asked in his gravelly voice.
“No,” I said.
We talked for a long time, as we always did-at first about Burr County, and the news and latest rumors. Donald shared them with me in his rough, rumbling bass. He told me about the three genius brothers who had torched their boss’s car and blown up his gas grill-and video-taped themselves doing it; and the two kitchen chemists, just back from eighteen months of state hospitality, who were cooking up methamphetamine again-Donald hadn’t figured out where yet; and the battling welder who had laid her husband out in the Tidy Shack parking lot last Friday, busting his nose for the fourth time that I could recall. He went on and on; I knew most of the players, even after three years. There were a few new actors-the ones driving around the county at night, dumping hospital waste from Buffalo by the roadsides, the guy poisoning coyotes, and cutting off their paws and ears and tails-but not too many. And some things were immutable-like the announcement from the local Republicans, a year before the next election, that again they would have no candidate to run against Donald.
He told me how the fall had been for him. He talked about hunting in the bright woods and fishing in the icy streams and lakes, about the deer he had taken and the fish he hadn’t, about the bear that was coming too close to the Green Gorge Trailer Court and the one that had nearly killed Van Adder’s brown mutt, about the eagle found dead by the interstate, and the first snowfall, four weeks ago.
Then he asked about me. As always I said little, and most of that was about work, the only story I knew how to tell-the only narrative that strung my days together and made any sense out of them.
And after that we spoke, as we always did, of Anne. Donald had been to the grave, there beside her mother’s, just yesterday. Did I remember how pretty it was on that hillside? I remembered. That old oak was bare now, but for weeks it had been a fiery red. Anne loved that tree. She used to climb it when she was a kid, on the Sunday visits she and Donald made to her mother’s grave. Did I remember that tree? I remembered. Donald had brought a big bunch of orange mums. Mums were her favorite, orange mums and pink roses. I remembered. I remembered it all.
We were silent for a while, and then he asked, as he always did, if I was seeing anyone. I told him no.
“Takes time,” he said. Then we wished each other well and said good-bye. I folded my arms on the counter and rested my head on them. My breathing was fast and ragged, but no tears would come.
Chapter Twenty-two
I was still sitting with my head on my arms when the phone rang again. It wasn’t Mike this time, either. It was his secretary, Fran, asking me to come to Mike’s office ASAP. She didn’t know what for. I put on some more clothes and caught a cab uptown.
The evening rush was compounded by rain and holiday-season traffic, and it took me nearly an hour to get to the Paley, Clay offices. Fran was at her desk, busy with a stack of documents.
“Conference room,” she said, barely glancing at me.
I went in to find Mike and Neary sitting side by side in silence, staring out at the nighttime cityscape. Neary was in shirtsleeves, his tie loose and his collar open. They were bleary-eyed and pale. There were coffee cups and a pitcher of water and glasses on the table in front of them. They looked like hell. I probably did too. It was that kind of day. Mike motioned for me to sit, and I did. Neary let out a deep breath and rubbed his face. Mike took a long pull on his water and set his glass down.
“DiPaolo called,” Mike said, “with a take-it-or-leave-it-offer. We’re going to take it.”
“Do we draw straws to see who does the time, or is it rock-paper-scissors?” I asked. Mike smiled thinly. Neary didn’t react.
“She wants three things from us,” he said. “First, we agree to lay off Nassouli. No more questions about him to anybody. We don’t say his name; we don’t even think about him too much. Second, anything we find-about who’s behind this, Nassouli’s files, anything-we turn over to her. Third, we say not a word about this to anyone or the whole deal is off-and that includes her pal Perez, out in San Diego.”
“And in exchange for this… what?” I asked.
“She gives us a pass, and our client too,” Mike said.
“That’s pretty generous,” I said, “especially considering the kind of hand we were playing. Why?” Mike and Neary traded looks.
“Apparently she’s got an applecart that she doesn’t want upset right now,” Mike said.
“What, with Nassouli in it? Is she saying they’ve got him? Is she vouching for him-that he’s not involved in any of this?” Mike was quiet. He looked at Neary. “What?” I asked, impatient.
“I suppose she is vouching for him,” Mike said.
Neary scratched his chin. “Yeah, she’s sort of giving him an alibi,” he said, nodding at Mike. Then he looked at me, smiling. “I mean, being dead for nearly three years would pretty much rule him out of your case, don’t you think?”
I sat back in my chair and shook my head while Neary and Metz were entertained by my surprise and confusion.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“They found the body about six months ago,” Neary said, “buried in some park, way out in Suffolk County. Best they can tell, he’s been on the bench for around three years, since the time he dropped out of sight, they guess. One shot, a. 32, in the head.” I was quiet for a while.
“DiPaolo told you this?” I asked. Neary nodded.
“Reluctantly,” he said. “But she told me.” I shook my head some more.
“What’s she up to? Why are they keeping such a tight lid on this?” I asked.
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” Neary said, smiling. He looked at Mike.
“She didn’t want to talk about any of this,” Mike said. “And what little she did say was only to stop us pushing on Nassouli. But reading between the lines, and with what Tom has told me, my guess is that they’re into heavy negotiations with people who’re under indictment, or are about to be. I think they’re trying real hard to create the impression with these guys that they’ve got Nassouli. And, while I imagine they’re not lying about it outright, I’d say they’d very much like these folks to believe that Mr. Nassouli is being cooperative.”
“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head. “And DiPaolo was afraid we were going to screw up her little charade, asking questions about Nassouli?”
“That’s my guess.”
“She’s skating on some thin ice,” I said. Mike nodded.
“Makes you think they don’t have as much as they’d like to on some of the big guys, if they’re willing to take those kinds of risks,” he said.
“Also makes you think they’re under pressure to show something for the money they’ve spent, looking for Nassouli these past three years,” Neary added.
“They came down on us pretty hard-and pretty fast,” I said. Mike nodded.
“Which is what makes me think their negotiations must be going hot and heavy right now. Timing is everything,” he said. I poured a glass of water and drank some, and then I sat back and shook my head some more.
“Don’t get too comfortable there, buddy,” Neary said to me. “And you may want to switch to coffee. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.” I looked at him and then at Mike.
“I don’t know if I can handle this much surprise at once,” I said. “What’s this ‘we’ business? Last time I checked you saw nothing in this that had anything to do with your shop. What happened? This Nassouli thing change your mind?”
<
br /> “It’s one of the things that did,” Neary said.
“That and what else?” I asked.
“You wonder how Pell knew that I had helped you out?”
“I figured it was one of two things: your source in the investigation, whoever it was you asked about Nassouli, went crying to Freddy, or fat boy figured it out on his own after he found out I’d been talking to Trautmann.”
“Well, you’d be wrong on both counts,” Neary said. “Freddy didn’t figure out jack shit on his own. And I never had a chance to talk to my guy; he’s been away since Thanksgiving. According to Shelly, Pell got a message on his voice mail, around noon on Friday-an anonymous message from a pay phone in Brooklyn Heights. One call, telling him about you and Trautmann… and me.”
My mind raced. The feds hadn’t been watching Trautmann. Someone had dropped a dime to Pell, about Trautmann and Neary both. That meant
… “Trautmann,” I said aloud, “working with somebody on the liquidation team.”
Neary nodded and grinned nastily. “Someone from my team, or from Parsons. We’re going to find out who.”
Mike rounded up some coffee for me, and I told him and Neary about my conversation with Faith Herman. Neither of them was surprised by her identification of Trautmann or by her delusions of driving with Jesus, though the Lincoln got a little smile out of Neary. Then we talked names.
“It’s not a long list,” Neary said. “Basically, it’s the people you met when you visited the MWB offices.” I nodded.
Mike’s brow furrowed. “Why just them? Why not look at anyone who’s there now, and who’s been on the job from the start?” he asked.
“The timing,” Neary said. “Think about it-Trautmann and John trade punches on Friday morning; by Friday noon someone had called Pell. There wasn’t much time between those events. The way I see it, Trautmann told our mole about his run-in with John, and the alarms went off immediately. The mole didn’t have to play connect-the-dots, or go snooping around looking at visitor logs. Things happened too quickly for that. I think the mole recognized John from Trautmann’s description right away, because he’d met John-with me.” Mike nodded.
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