Faces of the Gone: A Mystery (27 page)

s I drove toward the NDB’s Newark Field Office, I was actually feeling optimistic for the first time since my house blew up. Maybe it was how L. Pete prefaced that one sentence—
when this is all over . . .
— but I was allowing myself to daydream about getting Irving Wallace locked up then putting my life back in order. I would use the insurance money to build a new bungalow—a better bungalow, one with a home theater instead of a living room. I would buy new electronics equipment, new clothes, new kitchen appliances. I would buy furniture with salsa-resistant fabric.
I was somewhere in the midst of thinking about the golf

“Hey,” he said in a hushed voice. “The guy finally came home . . .
in a van.
”
“What kind of van?” I asked in a whisper, even though I suppose I could have talked at normal volume.
“I don’t know. I guess you would call it a minivan,” Tommy said. “I couldn’t give you make and model. But it’s one of the big, boxy ones.”
I realized I never got much description from Mrs. Scalabrine about exactly what kind of van Irving Wallace had been driving. That was a detail I’d have to sort out later.
“What color is it? White?”
“More of a tan, actually,” Tommy said.
Which was close enough to white. Mrs. Scalabrine saw the van in the early morning. The rising sun can play tricks with colors, what with all that refracted light.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“Well, he parked,” Tommy narrated. “A blond woman— looks like bottle blond—popped out of the passenger side. Then three kids got out of the back. They’re unloading groceries.”
Well, at least Irving Wallace hadn’t lied about one thing: he really was shopping with the family. I wondered if his wife knew she slept next to a murderer every night.
“How tall is he?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s tall. I mean, it’s hard to tell for sure, but I’d put him in the six-four, six-five range for sure.”
“Does he look like the sketch?” I demanded.
Tommy hemmed for five seconds, then hawed for five more.
“Don’t force it,” I cautioned. “The sketch could be a bit off. I’m sure Red would be able to pick the guy out of a lineup.”
“It’s . . . it’s just hard to tell,” Tommy said. “He’s got a hat on, so I can’t see him that well. It’s not easy going from a sketch to a real face, you know?”
“Okay, okay. That’s okay,” I said quickly, to reassure myself as much as anything. “No problem. Where are you watching him from?”
“Two houses down on the opposite side of the street.”
“Good,” I said. “By the way, Irving Wallace just called me in the office not long ago. He invited me to brunch tomorrow at his house—said he had an important story to give me.”
“That’s scary,” Tommy said. “Are you going to go?”
“Oh, hell, no. Not when the quote he wants to give me goes, ‘Bam, bam, you’re dead,’ ” I said. “What I’m trying to figure out now is—”
“Oh, shoot,” Tommy interrupted. “He’s looking right at me. I gotta go.”
Tommy hung up and I felt a little panic setting in. But, no, he would be fine. If he saw Wallace coming, he’d be able to get away in plenty of time.
There was the small problem that if Wallace spotted Tommy, he’d know someone was on to him—even if he didn’t know it was us. It would make him more cautious.
Then again, this would all be a moot point in about fifteen minutes, when my new friends at the National Drug Bureau told me they were poised to arrest Wallace and execute a search warrant on his residence and office. I was about to get caught up in that daydream again when I reached the NDB’s Newark Field Office. Following L. Pete’s instruction, I pulled under the building. A guard stopped me for a moment, then waved me through after I identified myself.
The parking area was empty save for a smattering of dark, government- issue sedans. Apparently, anyone working on a Saturday was important enough to be furnished wheels courtesy of my tax dollars.
I took the elevator up to the lobby, where a couple of marshals—the same square-jawed types as before—were waiting for me. With a series of nods and polite gestures, they gave me the metal-detecting/wanding/patting routine. They took an extra moment or two over my recording device and let it slide only after I demonstrated it for them. But they paused over, of all things, my cell phone.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you for your phone,” one of the square-jaws said.
“Why, you need to make a call?”
“No, sir. Elevated threat level today. Cell phones can be used as detonators.”
“Okay,” I said, waving it around, “but no dialing any of those nine-hundred numbers you fellas like so much. I know they say there are young boys waiting to turn you on, but those are really middle-aged women doing those voices.”
“Sir?” he said, holding out his hand, unamused.
“Fine,” I said, handing it to him. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Just a moment, sir,” he said, then picked up the phone on the wall.
My wait was much briefer than it had been the last time— the key difference being that they were marginally happy to see me. L. Pete himself came down to the lobby to retrieve me.
“Hi,” he said, extending his hand and smiling with far too much enthusiasm. “Thanks for being prompt.”
We shook hands and he gripped as hard as he could. Why do some short guys always try to prove they possess superior forearm strength? Did they want us to know that, despite their lack of stature, they could still open stubborn mayonnaise jars?
“Nothing makes a journalist move faster than the promise of an easy scoop,” I said.
“Right, right,” he said, waving me onto the elevator. He slid his card through the slot on the control panel, then pushed the button for the fifteenth floor. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be glad you came.”
As the elevator launched us skyward, I took the opportunity to turn on the recorder in my pocket. I suppose it wasn’t the most polite thing to be recording a conversation without the other party’s knowledge. But in New Jersey it wasn’t illegal. And what L. Pete’s boss didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
When we disembarked, I was ushered past a succession of closed office doors until we reached the one in the corner, whose name plate announced it belonged to Field Director Randall N. Meyers. L. Pete knocked softly.
“Yes?” a powerful voice inquired from behind the door.
“It’s me, sir,” L. Pete said.
The powerful voice replied, “Come in, Monty.”
“Who’s Monty?” I asked as L. Pete opened the door.
“Oh, that’s me,” L. Pete said. “I’ve gone by ‘Pete’ since grade school. But when Randy found out my first name was Lamont, he started calling me ‘Monty.’”

The Director surveyed the young man who followed Monty into his office and was almost disappointed. This was his nemesis? This was the greatest threat his operation had ever known?
This
was Carter Ross?

Making it appear Carter Ross was actually on the flight had taken a few hours of work. First, the Director asked one of the National Drug Bureau’s computer technicians to hack into the
Eagle-Examiner’
s network, telling the tech it was part of an investigation and he had a judge’s order to do so. Once inside the mainframe, the Director accessed Carter Ross’s account and poked around long enough to get a sense of Ross’s e-mail style.

The office of Randall N. Meyers had a large expanse of carpet that was a step up in quality from the thin, standard-issue floor covering his peons walked each day. In the middle of the room, a highly polished conference table was surrounded by eight cushy chairs. Along the side was a small living-roomlike setup, with a leather couch and matching recliners surrounding a low coffee table. On the two unwindowed walls, there were various plaques, diplomas, and newspaper articles, chronicling a long, successful climb to the higher reaches of law enforcement. Then there were the pictures: a portrait of Meyers as a young infantry officer, a pair of posed photos with two U.S. presidents, then a collection of more candid shots with three or four people who looked vaguely familiar as senators or congressmen.

It was all meant to convey the high standing of the man inhabiting the office. Because, obviously, anyone with enough juice to command from the federal bureaucracy such tremendous resources of square footage, carpeting, and furniture had to be someone around which solar systems rotated.

That someone, Randall N. Meyers, was sitting at the far end of the room behind a large, mahogany desk. He was a bear of a man who did not bother standing when I entered. He was casually dressed in a blue button-down shirt, which was wrinkled by the presence of a shoulder holster that was weighted down by his service weapon. Even seated, his considerable girth was obvious. I immediately pegged him as suffering from high cholesterol, hypertension, and occasional battles with gout. Some people just have that look.

Then again, he also looked like he could pick up a Honda if he put his mind and muscle to it. Somewhere in Randall N. Meyers’s past there had been heavy manual labor or a lot of weightlifting.

But L. Pete was already slinking in that direction. His entire demeanor had changed the moment he entered that office. Gone was the little man with the firm handshake and the self- important—albeit Napoleonic—air about him. Around his boss, he was halting, uncertain, and deferential, like a puppy accustomed to scolding. He was gone before Meyers could tell him not to let the door hit him in the ass.

I sat and Meyers returned his focus to the incredibly vital document in front of him, doing his best to send the message the piece of paper contained information that far outdistanced littl’ ol’ me in importance. I was merely a distraction he would deal with when the more weighty matters that occupied the rest of his precious time were properly handled.

It was all part of the intimidation game, of course—along with the furnishings, the size of the office, and the pictures on the wall. And I guess it worked on some people. As a journalist, you can never let yourself get too impressed by someone. You have to remember that anyone, no matter how important they try to make themselves seem, is just as likely to be full of crap as anyone else. That was especially true with someone who went out of their way to impress upon you just how impressive they are.

So I did what I always do when I’m in a source’s office and they’re not paying attention to me: I subtly invade their privacy. You can learn all kinds of things from studying someone’s desk, especially a large desk like this one, which had so much room for pictures, knickknacks, and top-secret files.

In Meyers’s case, I learned he didn’t give a crap about his family. Really. There was one picture of him, a mousy woman, and three awkward girls. The rest were pictures of Randy Meyers and his buddies on a variety of exotic vacations: hunting, fishing, scuba diving, skiing, paragliding, skydiving—all macho activities by macho men.

The settings varied from the Caribbean to the Serengeti to the tops of mountains, but there was one constant to all the photos: in each one, Randy Meyers was in the middle. He was clearly the alpha male, bigger and beefier than everyone else, unafraid to throw around his weight.

And sure, I didn’t know him. But I knew guys like him and I could see him on those trips. He was the big shot, ordering the most expensive drinks (when someone else was buying), belittling anyone who didn’t catch a fish (unless he hadn’t), bossing around the strippers and whores (because he was too inept with women for the pickup game).

My decision to dislike the man had been thoroughly cemented.
Once I was done with the vacation pictures, I moved on to the top-secret files, doing my best to read them upside down, hoping to see the name Irving Wallace pop out of one of them. But there didn’t appear to be anything of use or importance. Even the supposedly vital document Meyers had in front of him was a letdown. It was a goddamn receipt for an airline flight.
Now I was getting steamed. While I was sitting there waiting, losing precious time against deadline, this jerk was planning another vacation with his idiot buddies. I started clearing my throat, shifting my weight, and making other not-so- subtle signs of impatience. But Randall N. Meyers was paying me no mind whatsoever, to the point it was getting downright bizarre.
How long had I been sitting there? I wanted to look at what time it was on my cell phone. But, of course, I couldn’t. The square-jaws downstairs had taken it from me.
Finally, Meyers looked up.
“Sorry about that,” he said, with a weighty sigh. “I hope Monty was courteous.”
“Yeah, he was a gem,” I said. “You must have sent him to all the best obedience schools.”
A brief look of amusement passed over Meyers’s face, then faded.
“Do your editors know you’re here?” he asked.
“I ran out before I had a chance to tell anyone,” I said. “But don’t worry. If I tell them we’ve got a good story, they’ll back me.”
“Very good,” he said. “Excellent.”