The Extinction Event (20 page)

They lay on the cross-country route that they had mistaken for a deer track, semi-coupled, surrendering to mirth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

1

07-2376.

The docket number found in a file in Frank's collection of the Flowers papers.

Although it didn't have an initial federal court ID number, Jack was pretty sure it was a New York case.

Jack no longer had access to a PACER account or a valid New York State Unified Courts System eTrack registration, so he called in a favor from an assistant district attorney in Morgenthau's office in New York City, a guy he'd gone to law school with, who looked up the complaint.

Jack expected it to involve Jean. Some case Frank fixed for her—probably, Jack thought, on Keating's behalf.

But Jack's law school pal—Vincent Tremain—called a day after Jack asked him to look up the case and said, “It's an assault beef. Some guy named Shapiro took a swing at a guy named Flowers.”

“Shapiro?” Jack asked. “Dr. Matthew Shapiro?”

“Matthew Shapiro, right,” Tremain said. “I don't know about the
doctor
part.”

“Took a swing at Robert Flowers?” Jack asked.

“Hang on,” Tremain said. “No, not Robert.”

“Keating?” Jack asked.

“That's it,” Tremain said.

2

Jack caught the 12:20 Amtrak from Hudson to New York City, to talk to the lawyer who had defended Shapiro. Paul Guzman. From a reputable firm: Traylor, Wein, and Castello.

He wanted to get information on the case—especially why Shapiro had attacked Keating—before he confronted Shapiro or Keating.

Caroline reminded Jack to be back in time for Robert's funeral.

“You really want to go?” Jack had asked her.

“Don't you think it would look suspicious if we weren't there?” Caroline asked.

“The paper reported Robert's death as an accident,” Jack said. “And no one's reached out to us. No reason for them to do so.”

“He was a colleague,” Caroline said. “And a friend.”

A tall, cowboy-looking guy with long blond hair, wearing pointy brown boots with decorative stitching, jeans, and an olive work shirt under a denim jacket, followed Jack into the coach car and sat two rows behind him on the other side of the aisle.

Hooper—the guy who beat Jack up—said the guy who paid him looked like a cowboy with long blond hair.

Jack studied him.

Could be the same guy.

An artsy-looking forty-year-old woman with white-streaked hair in overalls and two twenty-something girls, each plugged into their own iPods, entered the car and found seats.

When the Cowboy followed Jack into the café car, Jack took more interest in him.

The café was closed.

Jack had gone there to make a cell phone call.

Why had the Cowboy gone into the café car?

The Cowboy studied the café menu.

When Jack returned to his seat, so did the Cowboy.

Curious, half an hour later, Jack again went into the café car and this time pretended to make a cell phone call.

Again, the Cowboy followed and studied the closed café menu.

When Jack got off at Penn Station, the Cowboy followed him up the escalator and out onto Eighth Avenue. As Jack waited in the taxi line, the Cowboy, standing behind him, studied a Nokia ad on a billboard.

Jack left the line and, instead of taking a taxi, headed down Eighth Avenue.

The Cowboy strolled after Jack, checking out a barbecue joint, a shoe store, a bead store, looking at everything except Jack.

Whoever hired him, Jack thought, hired an amateur.

Or someone so professional and protected he didn't have to be invisible.

3

Guzman's law firm, Traylor, Wein, and Castello, which Tremain had said was reputable, was on the twenty-second floor of a steel and glass building on Lexington Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets.

Jack took a circuitous route, down 8th, east on 27th, up 6th, passing a former bank building, which looked like a Greek temple and was now a pharmacy, and, catty-corner across the intersection, a former pharmacy, which was now a bank.

When did we replace worshipping money with worshipping health? Jack wondered.

To make sure the Cowboy was following him, Jack stopped at X-Cite XXX, where he browsed the sex toys, the lubricants, the aisles of porn films, identified like sections in a supermarket:
Bondage, Lesbian, Interracial, Barnyard.
…

The Cowboy studied whips and handcuffs, leashes and collars, C-clamps and dildos that looked like chew toys.

The feathered masks and restraints seemed like artifacts of some dead religion. Or like things you would find in a pet store or hardware store.

“Last night,” a customer in hospital greens was saying to the Pakistani or Indian clerk, “this guy comes into the emergency room with a lightbulb up his ass. He apologizes. I tell him,
Honey, you don't know who you're talking to.
…”

“You going to buy the magazine, too?” the clerk asked.

“This guy,” the customer said, “was ripped. Gorgeous.”

“The magazine?” the clerk said. “I should ring that up?”

“Ever think that's an odd term for muscle definition?” the customer said. “Ripped!”

The clerk shrugged, rang up the magazine, and put it into a brown paper bag with a DVD.

“Some nights,” the customer said, “I mean, honey, this is St. Vincent's, the Village, there are so many people in the ER with body art, the place looks like a tattoo convention. Twenty, thirty years from now, I don't want to see these people with their clothes off.”

A woman in a G-string the green of a Japanese beetle was taking a break next to her one-on-one booth and talking to another woman in a sheer white bodysuit. G-String, who had high-piled auburn hair, wore green spike heels. Bodysuit, who had a Louise Brooks helmet of glossy black hair, wore fuzzy slippers with cat-face toes.

G-String nodded at Bodysuit's slippers.

“Those'll get you in trouble for sure,” she said. “Attract a Furry. You know, one of those freaks into dressing up like a cartoon animal.”

The cell phone in her clear plastic pocketbook made a chattering sound, like a toaster having a nervous breakdown.

Jack walked toward the back of the store.

A half-dozen men were studying photographs on the covers of porn movies or porn magazines with rapt attention, as if they were worshipping.

In a way they are, Jack thought. Worshipping what's between a woman's legs.

The source of life.

The Great Goddess is coming back, and, boy, is she pissed.

Jack went into a booth. He put a dollar into a slot, which, with a whirr, inhaled the bill.

The split screen offered four previews. The booth smelled of disinfectant.

Jack heard the door of the next booth close.

Jack slipped out of his booth, left the shop, and was halfway down the block before the Cowboy came out of the peep show and spotted Jack turning a corner.

The Cowboy's indifference about being spotted struck Jack as dangerous.

At a Papaya King, Jack ordered two chili dogs.

He took one and told the henna-haired clerk to give the other to the Cowboy—which she did when the Cowboy made his demonstration stop at the counter.

The Cowboy touched his hat brim in thanks—and followed Jack over to Lexington, as they both ate their dogs.

Just before entering Guzman's building, Jack folded the paper napkin, which smelled of the chili, dabbed at the corners of his mouth, balled it up, and walked to a trash can—where he was joined by the Cowboy, who also tossed in his balled-up napkin.

The Cowboy smiled.

Jack smiled back and, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the office building, asked, “You going in?”

The Cowboy shrugged.

“I'm going in,” Jack said. “Traylor, Wein, and Castello.”

The Cowboy stuck out his lower lip and nodded, another thanks.

“Figure I'd save you the trouble,” Jack said.

The Cowboy nodded.

“Twenty-second floor,” Jack said.

Again, the Cowboy nodded.

“Figured you'd find out anyway,” Jack said.

The Cowboy nodded.

“You going to follow me in?” Jack asked.

The Cowboy nodded.

“You'll have to sign in,” Jack said. “You got a name?”

The Cowboy shook his head
no
.

Jack went into the building, showed his driver's license, and signed in.

Waiting for the elevator, Jack glanced back at the Cowboy, who flashed some kind of ID and was waved through without having to sign in.

Amateur or protected?

Jack had his answer.

Protected.

CHAPTER THIRTY

1

The receptionist in the office of Shapiro's lawyer, Paul Guzman, checked and told Jack that Guzman was in court.

As Jack left the office, the Cowboy leaned over the receptionist and flashed his ID.

The receptionist looked sideways at Jack. Suspiciously. And repeated for the Cowboy the information she had just given Jack.

Whatever ID the Cowboy possessed impressed people.

Jack and the Cowboy waited for the elevators side-by-side, facing forward. Not talking.

Side-by-side, they entered the elevator, simultaneously turned to face-forward as if they were a double act in vaudeville, and rode down to the lobby in silence.

Jack hailed a cab.

“Can I give you a lift?” Jack asked.

The Cowboy nodded and got in beside Jack.

Together, facing forward, still in silence, they rode down to 100 Centre Street.

Jack smelled the Cowboy's very uncowboylike aftershave, a light, almost lemony scent. Expensive. Not something you'd pick up in a drugstore.

Jack checked out the Cowboy's fingernails, which were manicured.

Why the cowboy outfit?

Why not?

Jack was still studying the Cowboy's fingernails, when the Cowboy unconsciously flexed his left hand.

Those long tapered manicured fingers were deceptive. Those hands could belong to a strangler.

2

“Docket ending 971,” said the bridgeman standing at the front of the courtroom. “The People versus Fritz Donas on a 230.00, Prostitution, 115.05, Criminal Facilitation in the second degree, 100.10, Criminal Solicitation in the second degree, 220.41, and Criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree.”

Jack whispered to a man carrying a briefcase in his left hand and a brown overstuffed expanding file under his right arm—undoubtedly a lawyer—“They told me Paul Guzman's in this court.”

“Counsel,” the bridgeman was saying, “do you waive the reading of the rights and charges, but not the rights thereunder?”

“Biland,” the man with the briefcase and expanding file said. “Roger Biland. I'm not your guy, Guzman.”

“What I meant,” Jack said, “do you know Guzman?”

“What's your guy, Guzman, charged with?” Biland asked Jack.

“He's a lawyer,” Jack said.

“Lawyer?” Biland said. “It's not good when one of us gets nailed.”

“I'm not a lawyer,” Jack said. “Not anymore.”

“But you're representing your client,” Biland said. “This guy Guzman.”

“I'm not representing him,” Jack said.

“Who is?” Biland asked.

“Nobody,” Jack said.

“Let me give you my card,” Biland said. “If he needs a lawyer, he could do worse than me. A lot worse.”

“Your Honor,” the defense lawyer was saying, “the bottom charge, criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree—”

“Your plea, Counselor,” said the judge.

“Guzman's not charged with anything,” Jack said.

“Then why are you here, trying to get him representation?” the man asked.

“I'm not,” Jack said. “I'm just trying to find him.”

“Keep the card,” Biland said. “If you ever need a lawyer…”

Tucking the overstuffed expanding file tighter under his arm, Biland continued around to the right aisle of the court and sat in the back bench, where he put his briefcase on one side of him and his file on the other side of him and started taking papers from his pockets.

The bridgeman was calling another case:

“Docket ending 694. The People versus Francisco Franco on a 120.04, Grand Larceny in the fourth degree on the complaint of Officer Leonard Cruz.”

At the back of the courtroom, a man with white hair was jotting something in a reporter's notebook.

“Francisco Franco…,” the judge said. “You've got a notable name.”

Jack figured the white-haired man for a journalist. If the court was his beat, he might know Guzman.

“
Los Cuatro Generales, Los Cuatro Generales
,” the white-haired man was singing under his breath. “
Los Cuatro Generales, Mamita mia, Qué se han alzado, Qué se han alzado…”

“What's that?” Jack asked as he eased next to the white-haired man, who gave him a side-long glance.

“‘
The Four Insurgent Generals
,'” the man said. “It's a song from the Spanish Civil War,” he said.

“I didn't know the Spanish Civil War was a musical,” Jack said.

The white-haired man held out his hand and introduced himself, “Leo Diamond.”

Jack took his hand and introduced himself, “Jack Slidell. Are you a reporter?”

“I write about the courts,” Leo said.

“Do you know a lawyer named Guzman?” Jack asked. “Paul Guzman?”

“The short, bald guy on the right,” Leo said.

Jack nodded his thanks and started toward Guzman, but Leo touched his arm.

“If you're looking for a lawyer,” Leo said, “he's a pit bull.”

The Cowboy watched Jack talk to Leo.