Looker

by Michael Kilian

  Alixe had said it would be unmistakable—more an English country manor than a Virginia farmhouse. It was of stone, with high narrow windows and several chimneys. There were stables, almost lost in the trees, and several outbuildings. A stone wall lined the property along the road, with white horse fences extending back to the house and beyond.

  A.C. drove slowly down into a shady glen, crossed a narrow creek, then ascended the following rise. The pasture grass was long and uncut. The front gate was open. He turned into the drive, slowing to the pace of a man’s walk as he bumped along over the gravel.

  The windows were dark. There was a porte cochere in front, sheltering only gravel. A verandah to the side held white furniture, but no human figure. No vehicles were in sight. No living thing moved, except for a large bird in desultory flight toward the stables. He turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. The silence was unnerving, the air damp and heavy and still. He took off his coat and slung it over his shoulder. His white shirt was wrinkled and stuck to his back.

  No one answered the door. A heavy brass knocker hung from it and he used it when the bell produced no response. The pounding echoed over the pasture, then silence returned. He had no idea what to do next. It was as though the tortuous path he had followed since meeting Camilla ended here, leading not a step further. It was like the end of life, providing no answer, only silence, only termination.

  She had taken a plane to Washington. This was her brother’s house. Where in hell was she?

  Moving quietly, he started around the side of the house, going up onto the verandah. The white wicker furniture looked to have been recently used, the chairs pushed to odd angles rather than grouped neatly around the tables, but there was no other evidence that anyone had been there—no ashtray or glass. The French doors that ran most of the length of the verandah were closed and locked. Peering through one of them, he saw a large, shadowy room filled with antique furniture, but no movement. Again, there was no testament to any recent human presence—no book beside a chair, no glass left on a table, no odd piece of clothing draped over the back of the couch. On the wall were a few paintings—all of horses as far as A.C. could determine in the gloom.

  Mostly there were weapons, antique dress swords and cavalry sabers, antique pistols and muskets, and, over the fireplace, a rifle that looked disturbingly modern.

  Their presence stayed his hand when he thought of rapping on the window. He went back to the front, tried the bell and brass knocker again, then walked around the house to the rear. A locked, windowed door led to a sort of pantry. Nothing moved beyond.

  As the weight of moisture in the air increased, the sky was turning from hazy blue to darkening gray. His watch reminded him of the approaching end to the afternoon.

  The stables beckoned malevolently, the open doors of the stalls a line of black somber staring eyes. Itching with the heat, he started toward them down a wide cinder path.

  A.C. stepped cautiously into the first of the stalls. The floor had been swept clean of manure and straw. The feed buckets were empty as was the water trough. It was the same in all the stalls. The tack room had been emptied, nothing hanging from the pegs but one old broken bridle.

  In the stable yard, A.C. gave vent to his frustration by shouting Camilla’s name. The hoarse, sudden sound silenced the birds, but produced no other response. In a moment, their vague chirping returned.

  He went back to the entrance and sat down on the steps. He waited for a half hour, and then another, and kept waiting. A sudden whoosh of wind came through the porte cochere, surprising him, stinging his face with bits of grass and leaves and dust. The sky darkened, and in the distance he could see trees bending like beaten, wailing women. He went to his car to put up the windows, opening the driver’s side door just as the first, heavy raindrops struck.

  He surrendered. Camilla, her brother, all the mysterious forces at play in this, had won again. He slid behind the wheel, fired the engine, closed the door and windows, and, tires churning in the gravel, angrily drove away. The thundering downpour followed him, making his return trip at first dangerous and then frustratingly slow as he reached the main highway and found it full of traffic.

  It was fully night by the time he entered the lobby of his hotel. Recklessly, he went up to the front desk and asked after messages. He certainly didn’t expect or want any. If anyone actually knew he was there, he would have no choice but to run.

  “Nothing, sir.”

  A.C. searched the man’s face for a sign of untruth or unease, any indication of trouble. He saw only indifference. The clerk was very busy. A.C. thanked him and crossed the lobby to the elevators, glancing carefully around him. No one was paying him any attention at all.

  One of the elevators was open and waiting. As he entered, a man stepped in behind him. Turning around, he found himself looking into the unhappy face of Detective Raymond Lanham.

  CHAPTER 15

  They went directly to A.C.’s room, as they might to a cell. The detective, carrying a briefcase in his left hand, trailed worrisomely behind. A.C. had stuck his .45 automatic in his belt at his back, and he feared the bulge might show.

  If Lanham noticed, he said nothing. He said nothing at all, except to repeat, “We’ll talk in your room,” when A.C. had tried to ask him a question.

  Reaching his door, A.C. fumbled nervously in his pocket searching for the key, sensing Lanham’s impatience.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “If you take all the keys out of your pocket, you’ll find it,” Lanham said.

  A.C. did so. The door opened to bright lights. The maid had already come by to turn down the bed. She’d pulled the drapes and put on all the lamps. That simple discovery made him feel all the more exposed and vulnerable.

  Lanham took a seat in one of the armchairs, sitting stiffly back and resting both hands on the arms. He watched everything A.C. did.

  “Would you like something to drink?” A.C. said, nodding toward the minibar.

  “Do you have any beer?”

  “Yes. There’s Heineken, Michelob …”

  “Any kind of beer.”

  A.C. poured the detective a Heineken, then seated himself in a chair facing the man.

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  Lanham had obviously been thirsty. He wiped a bit of foam from his lips before answering.

  “Like I told you before. I am a police detective. But a four-year-old kid could have found you. I had the D.C. cops make a hotel check on you—told them to start with the most expensive. They got you on the first bounce. And this is the computer age, Mr. James. Amtrak has them; hotels do. Rental car agencies, too.”

  “But how did you know to look for me in Washington?”

  Lanham hesitated. “I put a credit card trace on you a few days ago, and tracked you to Bermuda. Your hotel said a woman of Camilla Santee’s description was there, too, under the name of Anne Claire. A Miss A. Claire took a flight to Baltimore–Washington International. I didn’t think you’d be too long behind. When you disappeared after Miss Hazeltine was killed, this seemed the most obvious place to look—at least to start.”

  You’ll protect me, Camilla had said. You’ll keep Detective Lanham from finding me.

  “I was alone in Bermuda,” A.C. said.

  “The two of you were seen together all over the place. A chambermaid saw you crawl out of her bed. If you’re going to hide from me, Mr. James, don’t stop for a shack job—especially with the kind of woman who can turn heads in the next solar system.”

  “I wasn’t hiding from you, not then. And it wasn’t a ‘shack job.’”

  “She wasn’t your wife.”

  “Am I under arrest?” A.C. said testily, repeating what he had said to Lanham in the elevator.

  For a long moment, Lanham didn’t answer.

  “There’s an official paper in my briefcase with your name on it,” he said finally.

  “I didn’t kill Bailey, Mr. Lanham. I know how it must look, but, my
God, she’s an old, old friend. She was very dear to me.”

  He had almost said that he had nothing to do with her death. But that was quite untrue. He had everything to do with it. If he had taken her to her family that first night, instead of home to his apartment, she’d be very much alive. So many things he now wished he’d done. And not done.

  Lanham’s eyes were impassive behind his glasses. He continued to study A.C. intently.

  “Your denial belongs in an official statement,” Lanham said.

  An official statement, in front of a witness, and with a lawyer present. The detective hadn’t even gone through his dreary Miranda ritual.

  “Do you have a warrant?” A.C. asked, crossing his legs. “I mean, do you have handcuffs and all that? Are you taking me back?”

  “Not just yet.”

  Lanham seemed to have relaxed a little, perhaps because A.C. was sitting so calmly. A.C. didn’t feel calm. He was desperately thinking of how he might escape from this man.

  “I’m also interested in any information you might have concerning the deaths of Belinda St. Johns, Philippe Arbre, James Woody, and Peter Gorky,” Lanham said. “You know about those?”

  A.C. nodded. “Yes. At least what was in the papers. But I don’t have any information beyond that.”

  “You talked to Belinda St. Johns about the videotape that Pierre Delasante had. Now she’s dead.”

  “I’m not a suspect in that, am I? I was in Bermuda.”

  “We have a suspect, fat fucking lot of good it will do. His name is Vincent Perotta.”

  “He’s a mobster. Our story said he was Belinda’s boyfriend.”

  “That’s about all your paper got right. Mostly you had bullshit. Your editors went off on this cockeyed sex-ring angle. We’re pretty sure it’s much simpler than that. The old unwritten law.” He paused, reluctant to say more.

  “What unwritten law?”

  “Last time I told you something confidential, it ended up in your paper.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Detective Lanham. I am no longer employed by the New York Globe.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Or maybe I should say I’m glad.”

  “Probably glad. I’m beginning to be.”

  “The Newsday story came the closest. One of their guys has some pals in my division. That videotape we talked about? There were two cassettes. Gorky had the other. The stupid son of a bitch sold it on the underground market. He might as well have sent it to Perotta by messenger.”

  The pistol was hurting A.C.’s back. He tried to keep the discomfort from showing in his face.

  “Our assumption is that Mr. Perotta found the tape offensive. They have a highly developed sense of honor, these wiseguys. Showing them disrespect can be a capital offense. Belinda St. Johns was Perotta’s woman. She was one of the most beautiful women in New York and he owned her. Fooling around may be the national pastime of you folks on the Upper East Side, but in his world, you honor that. Pierre Delasante, James Woody, and the others, they fucked with her. So did one of my colleagues, and he’s lucky he didn’t get his head blown off. Gorky put the whole thing in the public domain. I don’t think he liked the way he died at all.”

  “But why Philippe Arbre?”

  “Wrong place, wrong time. There was a tell. A sign. James Woody was castrated after they strangled him. Had his genitals shoved down his throat. Arbre they left intact. Gorky was strangled with film or videotape, probably after they did other things to him. Belinda was shot through the pelvic area. I could be less delicate about it. All nice little touches. These are a great bunch of guys.”

  “Aren’t you going after them?”

  “Who?”

  “The mobsters. The ones who did the killing.”

  “I repeat, who? In this country, you don’t arrest people on surmise. At least not guys like Perotta. He was in Florida. We got that fact nailed down pretty quick. We’ve got no witnesses to these killings. We had one of our own on the scene in Belinda’s apartment, flagrante delicto, and all he saw was a bullet go by.”

  “If you’re so bloody marvelous at finding people, why aren’t you after them? Why are you down here chasing after me?”

  “They’ve brought in the organized crime unit on this. It means a very major investigation. A lot of action. A lot of press conferences. But very little in the way of results. When is the last time you heard of mob heat being put away for waxing anybody?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t follow these things.”

  “Well, I do. I’ve been a cop for a very long time, and I’ve never seen it happen. The downtown brass have also wrapped the Wickham murder into this one. They believe—for the official record, anyway—that she went down as part of this hit. She’s now in the big file with the rest of them, which means her case is going to end up in never-never land, too.” He laughed, unhappily. “Anyway, we’ve restored Bad Biker Bobby Darcy’s good name. He may have been a pimp, a thief, a razor artist, and an ex-con, but nobody’s calling him a murderer anymore.”

  “You killed him.”

  “Yes. I surely did. Because a few people had the wrong bright idea, Darcy’s dead, one of his ladies is dead, a good cop is dead, and a gentleman from Texas has a very sore throat.”

  “That’s why you’re down here, isn’t it? The Molly Wickham murder. The case went bad and you want to set it right. All those people are dead for nothing and you killed one of them.”

  “Line of duty, Mr. James, though it’s one I sure as hell would like to take back. Late at night, sometimes, I want to take all of them back. I’ve killed four people as a police officer. Contrary to what you see on television, that’s an unusually high number in the NYPD.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Shit happens.” Lanham took several large swallows of his beer, nearly finishing it.

  “And now there are all these new murders.”

  “There are always murders. Streets and sanitation get garbage and potholes. We get dead bodies. But Perotta’s gunsels had nothing to do with Molly Wickham’s killing. I know that and you know that, no matter what the organized crime unit has to say at the next press conference.”

  A.C. got up to get Lanham another beer. For a foolish fleeting instant, standing out of the detective’s line of vision, he thought of pulling out his automatic and threatening Lanham with it, holding him off long enough to get out the door and escape.

  He was losing his mind. He wasn’t going anywhere until this policemen let him—or told him. He lingered at the little bar to make himself a gin and tonic.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked, handing the man the fresh bottle.

  Lanham, loosening his tie, accepted the beer with a nod of thanks. He seemed all cop now. The professorial demeanor had entirely vanished.

  “I want you to help me find your friend in the limousine, Pierre Delasante. He knows what happened to Molly Wickham, and why. So, I think, does your lady love Camilla. Unfortunately, Pierre’s whereabouts are very unknown. And I’m not the only one looking for him. Until they get him, Perotta’s little bad guys haven’t filled out their dance card. He was in Gorky’s videotape blue movie. He was in the sack with Belinda and the rest of them. He was shaking Belinda down for serious money. Perotta enforces his laws. He doesn’t have to fuck around with trials and lawyers the way we do.”

  “Do you think Pierre’s still alive?”

  “Yes, I do. If they’d gotten to him, too, they’d have left him where he’d be noticed—with some kind of tell. I want to get to him before Perotta’s hitters do.”

  “Molly Wickham was in that movie. How can you be that sure she wasn’t killed by the mob, too?”

  “I want Pierre Delasante, Mr. James. I want his ass, and damned soon. I think you can help me. If you do, we can hold the matter of Bailey Hazeltine in abeyance for a while.”

  Their eyes met, unhappily. A.C. really wanted to help. He had from the beginning. But there was Camilla.

  “I went to his house in Georgetown,” A.C
. said. “It doesn’t look like he’s even been there.”

  “I went there, too. I had the D.C. cops open it up for me. I agree. I don’t think anyone’s been there for many days. I also went to the feds. They’ve been on him for months but they were about as helpful as the government of China.” He gestured at his briefcase. “I’ve got several yards of computer printout in there on the federal investigation. I broke all kinds of department regulations and I don’t know how many laws getting it, but it doesn’t tell me shit.”

  A.C. took a deep breath. He could throw in with Lanham this far.

  “I think that’s something I can assist you with,” he said. “I have a friend in the federal government—a lot of them, actually. But this one could really prove useful. I was thinking of seeing him myself.”

  “When can we get to him?”

  “Not tonight. He’s out of town. I checked. But he’ll be in his office first thing in the morning.”

  “He’s FBI?”

  “Better than that. He’s a senator.”

  “Is this some kind of fucking joke?”

  “No joke.”

  A.C. finished his drink. Lanham remained fixed to his chair, still the inquisitor.

  “There are a number of references in the computer printout to a Jacques Delasante, aka Jack Santee,” Lanham said. “He’s Pierre’s cousin. He’s also the brother of Camilla Delasante, aka Camilla Santee. Do you have any idea where he is?”

  “We’ve never been introduced.”

  “Come on. He’s the one who beat the shit out of you, isn’t he? I want him, too. And I want her.”

  “I don’t know what I can do, Detective Lanham. I haven’t seen her or talked to her, not since Bermuda. I’m being perfectly honest. I’ve been looking for her. I’ve gotten nowhere.”

  “They’re all from South Carolina. Do you think they might have gone down there?”

  A.C. shrugged.

  Lanham got to his feet wearily. “Are you going to help me? Or do we go back to New York?”

  A.C. reflexively rose as well. “Yes. As much as I possibly can.” He emphasized the word “can.” Because of Camilla, there were some things he couldn’t possibly do. He still had her red scarf, folded neatly in his pocket.