House of Secrets - v4 (27 page)

He paused for Pierce to pass comment, but the director maintained a stony silence. The expression on his face gave Andy nothing to read. The room was cold, and Andy could feel the Freon chilling the perspiration that had formed on his neck and at his hairline. It was too late to second-guess his plan; he plunged ahead.

“I guess that’s what I’m after, Bill. There was that little flare-up of interest over the winter. As I recall, it looked at the time as if Titov was being given an extremely close look by the Feds. I guess I’m just sort of wondering what the status is there. I know the guy’s a mobster. He’s organized dirt.”

Pierce nodded almost imperceptibly. Andy paused again. Pierce still gave no indication of being ready — or willing — to weigh in on what he was hearing. Andy plunged forward.

“I’m strictly fishing here, Bill. I’m just looking to see if there’s anything interesting that might not yet be in the public record that might be something I can pass along to my friend. Like I said, my guy is just trying to make a buck the old-fashioned way. It’s pathetic that someone like Titov can steal the food off his plate. For that matter, it wouldn’t do me any harm to know what’s going on in my backyard either, would it? Call me curious. I’m just wondering if this Titov has got anyone in particular in his pocket that we know about. Is he considered a big player? Or maybe angling to become one? Basically, I’m trying to find out his status.”

Pierce allowed his head to tip slightly to the side. “His status?”

“Sure. Or the status of any investigation that might be going on with regard to him. For example, I’d love to be able to tell my friend if this Titov was about to explode. I’m just looking to get more of his story.”

Andy wasn’t sensing an especially receptive vibe from the director. Now that he was actually airing his vague inquiry, the story wasn’t sounding terrifically convincing. He needed to be more blunt; William Pierce had too good a nose for the decorative bullshit. Andy skidded forward in his chair.

“Bottom line, Bill. How big a target is Aleksey Titov? On the scum factor. High? Low?”

“This is for your friend?”

“That’s right.”

“And what’s good for your friend is good for you?”

Andy didn’t care for the implication of Pierce’s question, but then again he wasn’t in a position to quibble. Andy straightened in his chair. He had to pull the plug on this thing.

“Forget it, Bill. I’m being vague, and you’re right to call me on it. Next thing you know, I’ll be seeing Russian mobsters under every pillow. Forget it.”

“I’ll look into it,” Pierce said.

“No, honestly. No need. I was really more curious to see if there was anything off the top of your head. You stick with the big fish. And feel free to come waste my time whenever you wish.”

Pierce gave a shrug. The two men chatted for several more minutes. Andy had the distinct feeling that the FBI director was gently batting him around, the way a cat does with a smaller creature in advance of snuffing it out. When Andy rose to leave, Pierce clamped a hand on his shoulder and walked him to the door.

“You know I’m apolitical, Andy,” Pierce said as they paused at the door. “My personal feelings have no place in my job. But—”

Andy jumped in. “Thank you for your time, Bill. Seriously. All this noise going around about Chris and the rest of it. I guess I’m just trying to distract myself.”

A trace of a smile appeared on Pierce’s face. “Give my regards to your lovely wife, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

Andy passed through Pierce’s outer office and made his way back to the street. He knew that the FBI director’s window looked out in the direction of the Mall and that even if Pierce had wanted to stand at the window watching his visitor’s departure he wouldn’t have been able to. Regardless, knowing this did not keep Andy from the feeling that he was not walking down the street unobserved.

Oh good
, he said to himself as he reached the corner of Pennsylvania and Ninth avenues.
Paranoia. I’d been wondering where the heck you’ve been
.

A
ndy caught the three forty-five out of Reagan National. He attempted to occupy himself during the short flight with the latest Richard Russo book. To a large degree, Russo wrote the same book over and over, but that didn’t really matter to Andy, nor apparently to thousands of other readers. Each version of the story generally improved on the previous rendering. Deeper poignancy. Richer humor. Harder heartbreak. All the good stuff.

Andy couldn’t concentrate.

By the time his tray table was locked in its upright position and the swirling grid of single-family dwellings adjacent to LaGuardia filled the window by his elbow, Andy hadn’t turned three pages of the book. The flight landed, and Andy put his smile on autopilot as he navigated his way to the arrivals area, where a car was waiting for him. He felt both relief and suffocation as the door closed behind him, entombing him in the rear seat of the car.

Traffic was already slowing as the car made its way along the Grand Central Parkway toward the Midtown Tunnel. Andy’s gaze was aimed out the tinted window at the Manhattan skyline, but the calliope of skyscrapers was not registering in his mind. Abruptly, he lurched forward in his seat.

“Brighton Beach. How long would it take us to get down there?”

The driver caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “No longer than it’ll take us to get through the tunnel.”

“Do it. Head down there.”

The driver hit his turn signal and slid into the left lane. “Do you have an address, sir?”

Andy was already lost again in thought. “I… No. No address. We’re not really going anywhere.”

“Sir?”

“Just go! It doesn’t matter. I just want to see the goddamned place.”

T
he director of the museum’s Costume Institute was off in Greece for two weeks, a tidbit of information that Smallwood had stumbled onto the day before.

The director’s office was small and cramped, and Smallwood felt like a lumbering giant in it. He was standing at the photocopier. Although it wasn’t necessary to close the lid in order to produce workable copies, Smallwood did have to press down hard on the original in order to ensure the clearest copy, so he couldn’t simply let the machine do its work without him.

As the copier’s light scanned horizontally back and forth beneath the glass, its emerald glow illuminated two naked mannequins that were standing off to one side of the machine, lending them a sense of animation. The emerald light was bathing his face as well. Every time it crossed his face, Smallwood lowered his eyelids, enjoying the wash of green. In addition to the low hum emitted by the photocopier, there was a rhythmic series of clicking sounds as well, sounds that Smallwood fell into duplicating, clicking his tongue along with them.

Smallwood was making five hundred copies. A good round number. More than he really needed, but that was all right. At first he had feared the original might not reproduce so nicely. But the copies were looking good enough. The photocopier engaged a series of plastic racks where the copies exited the machine, and after each rack collected fifty copies, it automatically shifted up a notch to the next empty rack. Smallwood appreciated the machine’s efficiency of design. He found the whirs and clicks and pulsating green light extraordinarily soothing. He also appreciated the dungeonlike quality of the ill-lit office, and the two naked mannequins bathing in the rhythmic swipes of light. Smallwood felt he could have remained down in the office for days on end.

The plastic rack clicked up its final notch. Smallwood’s eyes remained open for the final copies. The pages slid out onto the rack, one every second, accompanied by the photocopier’s rhythmic
click… click… click…
They arrived faceup, momentarily suspended before dropping down softly onto the previous copy.

The cute little girl and her evil father.

As Smallwood watched the final fifty copies coming from the machine, it seemed that the father was becoming more and more evil with every passing sheet of paper. It really wasn’t right that the little girl was saddled with such an evil creature for a father. Not right at all. And apparently this man held a lot of power. His influence could be felt by millions.

Smallwood plucked the next copy as it came out of the machine and studied the handsome face. It was unacceptable, this person wielding such power. Something had to be done about it. If for nothing else, Smallwood thought, at the very least for the cute little girl who was whispering into her daddy’s ear.

C
hristine had been pleasantly surprised when Andy phoned to say that he had been called to New York for a meeting and that he’d be able to be home for dinner.

“Sweet of you to drop in on your constituents.”

She thought that the family could do with a special dinner. She headed over to the market to pick up the ingredients for one of Andy’s favorite dishes, Dublin fish stew. She decided to keep Andy’s night at home a surprise for Michelle. Rosa was picking up Michelle and her friend Emily at school, and the three of them were planning to head over to Hudson River Park. Christine added some artichokes and a bag of forbidden rice to her shopping basket. At the pastry counter she nabbed a strawberry cheesecake. Her husband would
drool
.

Christine was oddly keyed up when Andy arrived home, but she immediately sensed that his energy was much more subdued than hers. He looked drawn. When she asked him what business had brought him up to the city, he brusquely waved the question aside.

“Nothing. Just stupid stuff.”

Andy changed into his jogging clothes and went out for a run. Christine’s joy over choreographing the special dinner was gone. As she cut the haddock into chunks and washed the irritatingly dirty spinach, she realized just how angry she was with Andy. A part of her knew it was unfair of her, but she was furious that no matter what, it always came down to being all about
him
. His campaign. His decisions. His speeches. His career. The long-ago echoes of her mother’s tangles with her own self-involved husband didn’t help to pacify Christine in the slightest. Christine measured out the rice and lined up the spices. She ran cold water over the hard-boiled eggs and peeled them in the sink, then took a knife to the eggs, slicing them swiftly with a practiced precision.

As she whittled the eyes out of the potatoes with a paring knife, Christine replayed in her mind the weekend she and Andy had spent together in Boston. She marveled at how swiftly they had fallen into sync and right back out again. The past three days seemed only to have deepened the sense of estrangement she was feeling.

When Andy returned from his run, he had Michelle in tow. He had come across her and Rosa in the park. So much for Christine’s enjoying her surprise. But Michelle’s delight over having her daddy home in the middle of the week served to shove Christine’s irritation to a static part of her brain. Andy announced he was going to take a quick shower before dinner.

Except for the slightly overdone artichokes, the meal was delicious. Andy uncorked one of the bottles of the Benziger Reserve Chardonnay they had picked up during last spring’s visit to Sonoma Valley and entertained Christine and Michelle with tales of the Earth Day event. His mood seemed to have lifted since his return. He thought his story of meeting Tori Amos would get a rise out of Michelle, but the child could not have looked more bored.

“Sweetie, your cluelessness is showing,” Christine said to her husband. “Our daughter isn’t even eight years old. Tori Amos is a dinosaur.”

Midway through the meal, Andy started in on a story about his intern and an accident she had been in the day before involving a motorcycle. The story seemed to have come out of the blue. It sounded horrible. The young woman’s left hip was essentially shattered. Christine sat speechless as her husband shared the gory details. It was bad enough that he was telling the story in front of Michelle in the first place. But even worse was the oddly casual gloss he was putting on the tale, as if he were doing nothing more than sharing with his family a mildly interesting little snippet of information. It was clear from Michelle’s face that Andy’s story was upsetting her. Christine intervened.

“Andy? I think this can keep until later.”

Andy seemed confused. “I just thought… Well, I figured you should know, that’s all.”

“Fine. So I know. And so does our daughter. Thank you for sharing.”

Andy’s reply was interrupted by the phone ringing. Michelle hurried out of her chair.

“I’ll get it!”

As Michelle sped into the kitchen, Christine felt the blood rushing into her face.

“What the hell are you
doing?
Your daughter is still freaked out about that phone message and now you come waltzing in with some goddamn story about a girl who might not walk again?”

“She’s going to be able to—”

“That’s not the point! The point is, I don’t want to hear about this at the dinner table! For God’s sake, Andy, I was just trying to have a—”