JM02 - Death's Little Helpers aka No Way Home (19 page)

Gilpin slumped behind his desk, and I saw fatigue and chronic worry beneath his artificial tan. He was like a long-caged animal: exhausted and resigned, any fight left in him no more than reflex. He hadn’t said much, but it was all he had. I got up.

Nothing had changed in the big room when I passed through; the boys were still smoking and working the phones, and this time no one raised a head. Something had changed in the reception area, though.

The girl was gone. In her place behind the desk was a compact man, wearing a green waterproof field jacket just like mine. He had short blond hair and precise handsome features on a narrow white face. His eyes were gray and slightly upturned and reminded me of the eyes of the girl who wasn’t there. The TV was still on, but it was C-SPAN, not sheep, that he was watching. He looked at me briefly and impassively when I came through the door, and then his eyes went back to the screen. I paused for a moment, expecting him to say something, but he didn’t. I crossed the room, and his hand dipped into his jacket pocket and came out with a phone. I left the office and found the elevator waiting in the empty hallway.

They were outside, just beyond the lobby doors, and there were three of them. Two were big, and the third was bigger. The two big men held wide golf umbrellas. One man was around thirty, with dirty-blond hair, tied in a ponytail. He had a lot of rings on his umbrella hand, and his high cheekbones, pointed nose, and V-shaped mouth made him look something like a shark. He wore a long canvas duster, fastened to the throat. The other man was older, with short dark hair, a neat beard, and suspicious eyes. He wore work boots and khakis and an expensive waterproof shell over a plaid shirt, and in other circumstances I might have taken him for an engineer or a geologist. They had a couple of inches on me, each, and an easy twenty pounds. The third guy was a different story altogether.

He was six-foot-six, at least, and nearly three hundred pounds, and his bald bullet-shaped head was mostly covered by an intricate tattoo: two dragons locked in mortal combat, their red fangs clashing at the top of his skull. A hint, perhaps, of what went on underneath.

His face was fleshy and hairless and fish-belly white. A pale blue scar ran from temple to cheek down the left side, and met up with another that ran across his chin. His brow was a shelf of bone above small black eyes and a nose that had been rebuilt several times. His mouth was a lipless wrinkle, and his arms looked like two sacks of rocks. He was dressed in black motorcycle leathers, black gloves, and heavy black boots, all soaked through with rain. Rain beat down on his bare head, and each drop seemed to enrage him. He seemed to like the feeling. His eyes were locked on me.

The geologist nodded. “Let’s get out of the rain while we talk,” he said. He motioned me under his big umbrella. He had an accent, but it was slight and I couldn’t place it. My carry permit is no good in Jersey, my gun was safe at home, and my options were limited. I nodded back at him, rolled up my umbrella, and stepped under his. The shark stepped in beside us and Attila brought up the rear. They walked me into the parking structure next door.

Inside, the two big guys closed their umbrellas and led the way up a ramp to the second level. Attila walked behind me and made kissing noises. The only car on the second level was a massive black Hummer. It had smoked windows and a big chrome brush bar, and it glistened with beaded rainwater. The two big guys walked toward it but stopped when they were twenty yards away. I stopped too. They turned to face me. Attila paced behind me and made sniffing sounds. The big guys looked at me and I looked back, and we stood that way for a while.

“Shall we talk?” I said finally.

Attila came up close behind me and roared in my ear. “Shut up, bitch!” His voice was high— another steroid juicer, no doubt— and his accent was Eastern European. His breath had a burnt chemical odor, and the smell off his body was sour and powerful. He resumed his pacing and bumped me with his shoulder as he did. It was like getting sideswiped by a bus. I staggered forward a step but kept looking at the other two guys. A smile flickered across the shark’s face. He shook his head slowly and put a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. We stood silently for another couple of minutes and then we heard footsteps.

It was the compact blond man from the reception desk. His field jacket was zipped against the rain, and his corduroy collar was turned up. His head was down and his hands were in his jacket pockets, and he didn’t look at us as he came slowly up the ramp. The two big guys shifted nervously as he approached and even Attila grew still.

He came to a halt between the two big men and opened his jacket and shook off the rain. Underneath he wore a black sweater over a gray shirt. He was about five-foot-seven, and he looked like he was made of rebar. He ran a small, strong-looking hand through his hair and flicked away the water. He looked at me.

“Are you Morgan or Lynch?” I asked. He ignored my question.

“What is your name and what is your business with Gilpin?” he asked. His voice was soft and flat and faintly accented.

“Didn’t Gilpin tell you?” The two big guys shifted, and Attila came around to yell down at me.

“Bitch! You answer the questions!” The chemical smell was overpowering. A meth smoker maybe. Steroids and meth— the breakfast of champions. Great. The compact man cleared his throat and made a gesture to Attila with his small hand. Attila went around behind me again.

“Gilpin tells me everything, which I think you will come to see as a sensible course of action.” He was quiet for a moment, and he tilted his head slightly as he looked at me. “What is your name, and what is your business with Gilpin?”

“I’m a PI, and I’m working a missing persons case. I thought Gilpin might have heard from the guy I’m looking for. Apparently he hasn’t.”

The small man pursed his narrow lips and gestured again to Attila, who came around in front of me. “Perhaps I have not made myself clear; perhaps that is why you have not answered my questions fully. Or perhaps you have not understood me.” The rain was falling harder, and the small man’s voice was nearly lost in the rushing sound of it. My heart was pounding. “I think Goran’s questions would be more clear to you.” Attila smiled hideously at me and made his kissing noise.

I looked at the small man and took a deep breath. “I’m happy to speak with you and maybe answer some questions too— and if you want to answer a few in return, I’ll even spring for the coffee. But lock your freak back in the attic, and let’s do this like civilized people.” Attila’s nostrils flared and his little black eyes got smaller and blacker. He took a step toward me and drew back his fist. He opened his mouth, to roar at me, but I interrupted.

I snapped my umbrella up into his crotch and drove the metal point into his balls. I’m not sure how much damage it did, but it got his attention— long enough for me to hit him twice in the throat with the stiffened fingertips of my right hand. The blows came up from under, from the legs and hips, and with plenty of twist and momentum. He made a retching sound and clawed at his throat, and while he did I pivoted and kicked him hard in the side of the knee. He went down, and his bald head made a wet cracking sound on the pavement.

I stepped back, breathing hard, and was surprised to find I still had my umbrella. The geologist was pointing a big automatic at me, and so was the shark. The small man was shaking his head slowly, and there was a look of weary disappointment on his neat face. He rested a hand on the geologist’s arm and spoke softly in a language I didn’t recognize. The two men lowered their guns and the shark knelt by Attila, who was still on the ground and whose eyes were unfocused. Blood was leaking from his nose. The small man looked at Attila and sighed and shook his head a little more.

“The drugs make Goran excitable and too easily provoked. He is less and less useful.” He looked up at me. “Perhaps you are too easily provoked, as well. Perhaps if I were any less … civilized … you would be dead right now.” I struggled to get my breathing under control and managed a shrug. Between them, the shark and the geologist hoisted Attila to his feet and half walked, half dragged him to the Hummer. They heaved him into the back seat and shut the door and waited by the car. I took another deep breath.

“If you were careful enough to want to talk to me in the first place, I figured you’d be careful enough not to escalate things needlessly. Not before you knew who I was, anyway— and who else might know where I went today.”

He nodded. “That is a great deal of speculation … and risk.”

I shrugged again. “Not that much,” I said, and I smiled a little. “Not with a guy who watches C-SPAN and has such good taste in clothes.”

A whisper of a smile passed across his face. “More than you think, I assure you,” he said.

“You want to have that chat? My offer of coffee stands.”

The small man shook his head. “We will talk here. You said that Gilpin was of no help to you— that he had not heard from your missing person, yes?” I nodded. “And you believed him?” I nodded again. “Gilpin said you threatened him … with certain regulatory agencies.” Another nod. The small man looked at me, silent, waiting for more.

“He wasn’t cooperative at first; I needed some leverage.”

“So, your threats were empty?” It was one of those Do you still beat your wife? questions.

“My feeling about the Feds is that they should earn their pay,” I said. “They don’t need my help and they don’t want it.”

“So you have no reason to speak with Gilpin again or to disturb my business any further?”

“None that I can see.”

“You have no reason,” he said. His soft voice was cold and there was no question in it. I looked at him for a moment and nodded. The faint smile flitted across his face again, and he turned up the collar of his jacket. “So I will not see you again, Mr… .” He held out his hand.

I looked at him and shook it. It was like a fistful of cyclone fencing. “March,” I said.

He nodded. “Gromyko.” He zipped his jacket and climbed into the passenger seat of the Hummer. The geologist got behind the wheel and the shark got in back, and they drove down the ramp and out into the

rain.

I stood at the top of the ramp for several minutes and let the tension drain away, but my limbs still quivered with loose adrenaline as I walked to my Toyota, and I was edgy and alert. If I hadn’t been, I might have missed the cars that followed me back over the bridge and into Manhattan.

12

A bad tail job has all the subtlety of a cold sore; a good one— an expensive one, with lots of cars, and drivers who don’t get overeager— is delicate as lace. The guys who’d followed me from Jersey weren’t bad— they’d used at least two cars, and they never crowded— they were just unlucky. Traffic over the bridge brought them in too close and I was already jumpy. They’d known the deal was done when I started a slow meander through the streets of Morningside Heights, and after a game half hour they’d broken off. But they weren’t bad.

Which was why I took the long way to my brother’s house on Saturday, and stopped frequently to check my back. My last checkpoint was a Starbucks on First Avenue. I sat near the window and scanned the afternoon traffic for faces or cars I’d seen too often. I caught no glimpse of the rusted brown Cavalier from last night, or of the black late-model Grand Prix, but that was little comfort. And I still had no idea of who they were or what they wanted— which was even less.

I’d called Neary this morning and told him what happened. He’d thought it was Gromyko. I had disagreed.

“It would surprise me somehow,” I’d said.

Neary laughed skeptically. “From what you told me about your chat in the garage, I’m surprised he didn’t dump you in the Hudson for cold-cocking his ape.”

“I think he’s a little more subtle than that— at least on a first date. He wanted to find out what I was up to and send a message about staying out of his yard. He did that, and we … reached an understanding. And there are practical considerations, besides. You think he’s got the manpower for a professional car tail just waiting around?”

“I don’t know who he is or what kind of manpower he’s got, and neither do you. But I’ll make some calls and maybe we’ll find out.” I thanked Neary and told him I owed him one. He muttered something about a long list, and asked if I had any kind of line on Danes yet. I told him no and told him about Pratt and Sovitch and Anthony Frye and what I’d found out about Danes’s custody fight with Nina Sachs. When I was through, Neary whistled softly.

“Not exactly Mr. Congeniality,” he said.

“Not exactly.”

“Still, you’d think a semifamous guy like him would have a few more friends.”

“If he does, they stay well hidden.”

I finished my coffee, left Starbucks, and headed south and west. I watched the cars and the sidewalks as I went, and thought some more about the smallness of Gregory Danes’s life, how sparsely peopled it was, how an absence of five— almost six— weeks could occasion so little notice and even less concern. I walked and thought about Danes’s isolation, and by the time I reached Ned’s I was somehow thinking about my own.

Ned lives on Park Avenue in the low seventies, in the big old apartment we all grew up in. It was just after two when the doorman trotted out, held the big bronze door, and greeted me by name— a sure sign I’d been visiting too often. A tall slender couple waited in the marble lobby: Lauren and Keith.

“Look at you, all prompt and everything,” Lauren said, and she kissed me on the cheek. She wore a green cotton sweater and baggy pants. Her black hair was loose and parted in the middle. She brushed it from her angular face, and it hung straight and glossy down her back. There was a faint tan across her cheeks and her strong pointed nose. Her green eyes narrowed slightly.

“Where’s Jane?” she asked.

“At the office,” I said, “arguing with lawyers.” I reached around her to shake hands with her husband. Keith Berger looked down from his six-foot-four elevation. He was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, and he still had his Rockefeller University ID clipped to his pocket. He ran a hand through his tangled brown hair and grinned.