Palindrome (4 page)

I polish off my rye and have to tuck my fingers under my thighs to resist a refill.

I say, “Like I said, he's crazy.”

“He made a tape of her dying, Lamb. That's what he said.”

I raise an eyebrow. Greta's face is cracking slightly with emotion. Yet there's something about the way she's telling this story that doesn't quite ring true with me. It seems rehearsed, though that could just be because she's gone through this so many times. But I can't shake the feeling that she's omitting crucial details. And why hasn't she taken off those gloves?

As the light fades outside, Greta's pale skin seems to turn luminescent, glowing like a jack-­o'-­lantern filled with blue ice.

“Sure you don't want a drink?” I ask, my left leg fidgeting uncontrollably.

Greta doesn't seem to have heard the question. I suddenly remember poor Sadie, sitting alone in her room all this time. She probably doesn't even mind. I got her a bunch of good stuff from the library last week. But she'll probably guilt the hell out of me once Greta leaves.

“So . . .” I finally say, leaning in closer. I can smell her expensive perfume and minty breath.

Greta purses her lips, like she's swishing her next words around in her cheek; tasting them before releasing them.

“I told all this to the detectives on the case. They didn't care. They found the killer, that's all that mattered to them. Why should they care about some cassette tape?”

I shake my head slowly, mulling over the implications of what Greta is telling me. “But . . .” I swallow a laugh of disbelief. “I mean, surely you have to agree the most likely scenario is that it simply doesn't—­”

“It exists, Lamb,” she spits. Then she suddenly starts rubbing viciously at her upper cheeks, rubbing until I understand that she's scraping away a thick layer of makeup to reveal dark blue circles hanging beneath her eyes. “It's all I can think about. It's out there somewhere. Savannah's last words. And I can't make peace with this until I have it back. The thought of some sicko out there listening to her . . . I haven't really
slept
for five years.”

Another long, empty pause. Another siren screams down East Broadway.

“Isn't it possible you misheard?”

“No,” she growls, and the sudden shift in her voice makes me jump slightly out of my seat, then try to compose myself. She's growing heated, her face starting to glow pink. “And either he still has it, or he stashed it somewhere before he was arrested. It's mine, Lamb, you understand? He has my sister's voice. Her dying words. Nobody should have that but
me
.”

I'm not quite sure I
do
understand.

“Okay. So suppose I agree to try to find this—­”

“You'll start by talking to Silas. He's housed in the Berkley Clinic—­a mental institution a hundred miles north of the cabin where my sister was murdered. I'll give you ten thousand up front. And three hundred thousand when the tape is in my hands. Cash. And I'll be able to tell if it's the real thing, because it will be Savannah's voice.”

A three-­hundred-­thousand-­dollar bounty for something other than a briefcase filled with five hundred thousand in cash is nearly unheard of. This is it. The holy grail of snooping. This is the stuff PIs dream of. But I summon my best poker face, act unimpressed by her offer.

“I'm guessing Silas isn't going to be thrilled with the prospect of cooperating.”

“That's where your unprofessionalism comes in,” she says.

“There are guards, no? Loony bins are basically prisons.”

“For three hundred thousand dollars, I suspect you could get creative.”

This is a lot to process. While my gears are still turning, she sits back in her chair and conveys something with the slightest upturn of her lip that may be flirtatious but reads more likely as disgust. Her smudged makeup does nothing to mar her beauty. On the contrary, the imperfection gives her the slightest air of vulnerability. She glowers at me and lowers her voice.

“And once I have the tape,” she says, “you will have me. However you want.”

Her face is completely deadpan. Betrays no hint that this is something she would enjoy in any way. It's just another part of the generous compensation she's offering. My poker face is wilting, my heart screaming, pushing blood to every corner of my body. Controlling myself is taking every inch of concentration. Both legs are shaking. She frightens me.

“Ten thousand up front, but another five for expenses,” I practically squeak. “And make it three fifty. Only half of that is for me. I'm going to need help.”

She weighs this for a moment. “Who?”

My mouth is dry. I can't tell if this thing seizing me is lust or terror. Either way, I suddenly want her out of my apartment, away from Sadie. I clear my throat.

“I had help on the Orange case, never could have done it alone. Courtney Lavagnino is the best tracker I've ever worked with. Honestly, he's a genius.”

“Courtney?” She spits his name out like it's bitter. I catch a glimmer of fiery orange in her eyes. “That's a man?”

“He was the brains behind finding the forgers,” I gush, eager to change the topic. “He's brilliant. Speaks like seven languages. He once found a ninety-­year-­old Nazi hiding out in New Zealand, based only on a water-­damaged black-­and-­white photo of him from the war. He worked briefly for the DEA, gathering evidence against drug moguls, but quit because he needed to work at his own speed. He was hired by a hot sauce manufacturer to find a pepper seed—­a single fucking
seed—­
rumored to grow into the hottest pepper known to man. He found it. If you're serious about getting this tape back, you'll pay for both of us.”

She runs a gloved hand through her hair. I want to say she's calming herself down, but really she never actually flipped out. Did she ever even raise her voice? She's able to project this terror just with her eyes.

“Then give me his information. It sounds like he's the one I need, not you.”

I shake my head. “If you want to find a truffle, you can't just hire the pig.”

She raises an eyebrow. I clarify: “For Courtney, it's all an intellectual exercise. He's a pure tracker—­not always a man of action. If you want someone to locate the tape, hire Courtney. If you want someone to
get
the tape, you need both of us.”

Greta mulls this over. I sense the additional fifty grand is inconsequential to her if it means a higher chance of her holding the tape in her hands.

“Where was the seed?” she asks.

“In the safe-­deposit box of a South American dictator. Courtney wouldn't tell me which one. He was apparently a connoisseur and collector of peppers, bought it on the black market for millions. As I said—­he
found
it. I believe he was working with someone like myself, who figured out how to actually steal the thing.”

If I'm underselling Courtney's competence in the field a bit, it's more than offset by failing to mention his occasional interpersonal gaffes. He almost derailed our search for the forgers by growing impatient with what turned out to be a key witness, pointing out inconsistencies in that poor, confused girl's story with the callous logic of a poacher doing his taxes. Nearly broke her, and it took me hours of comfort and coaxing to finally extract what we needed out of her.

Greta reaches into her purse and removes a large wad of hundreds. Counts them out and plops them on the table.

“Well this time, locating it is not sufficient. I want you to hand it to me. Here is ten thousand up front, plus five for expenses. After three days call me on this number”—­she scribbles it down on a page in the police report—­“and report your progress.”

“Don't you want to sign—­”

“No contracts. Just get me the tape. Call me sooner if you discover anything important.”

I can hardly stand up to let her out. My legs are trembling, and the tips of my fingers are numb. By the time I manage to pull myself up, she's already out the door, the click of her black boots receding down the staircase. I stare at the pile of money on the table and try to remember if I ever actually agreed to this.

I
PICK UP
Sadie from school the next day, and we walk to the coffee shop a few blocks from our apartment to meet Courtney Lavagnino. We spot him sitting in the darkest corner he could find, a mug in his hand, eating lentils out of a Tupperware container and reading a thick Russian paperback. Sadie and I walk to the counter to order. Courtney is so wrapped up in his book, he doesn't even notice us entering. Some detective.

I order a red-­eye and scone for me plus a bran muffin for Sadie. The barista has a pierced nose, and the tattoos on her arms make me shudder, thinking about Savannah's face up on the slab. The barista blinks when I try to pay with a hundred.

“I don't have change for this,” she says.

“So keep it,” I say. “We come here a lot.”

I pull up an extra seat at the small wooden table, and Sadie and I sit down across from Courtney. Far from startled, he sets down his novel—­appearing disappointed by the interruption—­and takes a smooth sip of tea. He still has that hideous ponytail. My theory is he knows it's stupid but keeps it as a tribute to the freedoms of self-­employment.

“Hey champ,” I say. “Thanks for coming down to my end of town.”

“Hi Frank,” he says warily, like he's expecting bad news. In fact, his entire pale, horse-­shaped face looks like it was designed specifically to react to unpleasantness: skeptical eyebrows, wide, sad eyes, and a thin mouth that tends to default to a dour frown. Eventually I learned that the frown just means he's lost in thought, but anyone who sees him pouting on the subway, lanky arms crossed across his sunken, flannel-­clad chest, corners of his mouth pointed at the floor, probably takes him for a miserable hipster. Irony is, I doubt he even knows what
hipster
means.

I guess he's the closest thing I have to a work friend. We only worked together for seven weeks on the Orange case, but during that time we hardly left each other's side. Unlike me, Courtney seems to have made a deliberate decision to be a snooper. He's certainly smart enough that he could have done anything he wanted. Ponytail aside, he wouldn't look out of place in professorial tweed, lecturing about Camus. Or he probably would have made a hell of a beat reporter.

We haven't spoken since wrapping up the case for Orange Julius over half a year ago. I'd considered trying to get in touch with him since, just to hang out, but had no idea what to invite him to. He doesn't drink alcohol or coffee, so what do I ask? If he wants to meet up for a round of putt-­putt?

And besides, contacting him is itself an ordeal. He doesn't have a phone or computer. He's accessible only by email, which he checks two or three times a week at a library in Harlem. He has some sort of weird paranoia about technology, which he explained once while we were on the road. Being reachable 24/7 is part of it. He says he can't read, think or sleep knowing that someone could call at any minute. But also, all his time spent tracking ­people has made him aware of the digital trail we all leave in our wake, as conspicuous and easy to follow as elephant footprints. He doesn't want anyone to be able to find
him.
Hiring him for a PI job is like trying to get a reservation at a fancy restaurant. But he seems to have enough of a reputation in the right circles that suitors will put up with the inconvenience.

“You must be Sadie?” he asks my daughter with a weird smile. I've never seen him around kids, but I'm starting to suspect he's one of those guys who treats them like little adults. He sometimes seems like he learned how to interact with ­people from reading sociology textbooks.

Sadie nods slowly.

“Your dad talked about you a lot when we were working together. Here, I got you something.”

With a flourish, he produces a little silk sack from his pocket and hands it to her. Sadie glances up at me.

“It's okay,” I say. “Probably.”

Sadie tentatively reaches out to grab the bag then pulls it close and opens it, her forehead crinkling first in apparent confusion, then her eyes widening in awe. It's a handblown glass vial that glows royal blue even in the dim light of the coffee shop.

“What's it for?” Sadie asks, the colors seeming to swirl and shift as she rotates it in front of her face.

“I'm not sure exactly,” he explains proudly. “I found it in a Moroccan market. It was just so beautiful that I had to have it. You can keep anything in it: jewels or spices or pearls. Whatever secret treasures an adventurous young woman like yourself happens upon.”

“Awesome,” she whispers.

“What do you say, Sadie?”

“Thanks, Mister, uh—­” she says, still staring at it, mesmerized.

“Just Courtney,” he says.

“Yes, thanks, Courtney,” I say. “That was very thoughtful. Alright now, Sadie, do you have a book with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Could you go read your book at a different table? Courtney and I need to have a private talk.”

“Okay.”

She scampers off and sits down on the other side of the tiny café. There's only a young man on his computer between us, but he's bumping to whatever is on his headphones; I'm not particularly worried about being overheard.

“What are you drinking?” Courtney asks.

“Red-­eye. Black coffee with two shots of espresso.”

The corners of his lips turn down.

“I thought you said you were going to cut down on caffeine once we finished that job. That's disgusting. And terrible for your heart.”

“You must have misheard.” I take a big gulp just to piss him off and smack my lips. “So where did you really get that thing? You know what that is, don't you?”