The Lacey Confession (38 page)

The house on Kalorama Road was a four-sided, red brick Colonial, with double-hung windows and black shutters, dormers at the top and a beautiful, arched doorway. The neighborhood was as secure as any in the Washington area. So many important people, top officials and those with as much power as top officials, had chosen to live in the upscale Kalorama district of Georgetown. The enormous price tag on the property was no concern for Devereaux. In fact, he bought the house at a substantial discount because, as his real estate agent told him, “A lot of people think the place is haunted.” She had correctly pegged Louis Devereaux as a man who could not possibly believe such nonsense. With someone else, she might have left that out. Crazy as it seemed, selling a haunted house was every bit as difficult as selling one in which someone had been murdered or committed suicide. “These things must be disclosed,” Devereaux's agent told him. “And when they are, buyers get a little skittish.” To his advantage, these ridiculous concerns served to bring the price down. Even his realtor could not have guessed, but Devereaux would have gladly shared his home with a ghost or two. For sure, it would have been their ordeal.

He arrived home about eight—his usual time. He went straight to his bedroom where he changed into a pair of more casual pants and a pullover top. He washed his face, brushed his teeth—for reasons he never came to understand, he had always brushed his teeth before eating as well as afterward—walked back into his kitchen to mix a drink. Drink in hand, he sat down in his favorite chair in the living room, grabbed the remote from the small table next to him and turned on the television.

“Turn the TV off,” said Walter emerging from the hall that led to the downstairs guest room and private office. He carried a gun, pointed at Devereaux. The television went dark.

“How did you get in here?” Devereaux was quite clearly baffled. It made Walter feel very good to see him as confused as he had been that night outside Il Localino.

“You mean, how did I get past your alarm system? Your wiring—probably installed by the folks you work for, or better said, the folks who work for you—and your backup alarm too? I could tell you, but it would only be new information you'd be unable to use. So, forget about it, Louie. I'm here.”

“What do you . . .” Devereaux caught himself before saying want. That would have been too melodramatic. It nearly caused a smile to crease his lips. Instead, he decided to wait on Walter. If Walter wanted him dead, he'd be dead already. So, he must want something more. Devereaux felt confident he had plenty of time. Keep his mouth shut, that's what he decided. Let Walter show his hand.

“Did you think you could stay a step ahead of me forever?” asked Walter. “Did you think I was too old or something?”

“I thought I knew everything about you,” Devereaux answered. “Vietnam. All those special cases afterward. A lot of them weren't quite as confidential as you thought they were. Hell, you were the perfect combination of skill, great skill, a skill never seen before and perhaps never to be seen again, and vulnerability. There was always something about you, bubbling just beneath the surface, something by which you could be had. You were a figure of literary magnitude. Walter Sherman. Phantom. The Locator. Almost too good to be true. I admired you. You've no idea.”

“At first,” said Walter, sounding as if he hadn't heard a single word Devereaux said, “you figured it would be simple. Maneuver Harry into Tucker Poesy's web, and she'd get the document for you. You thought that would work. I can understand that. I probably would have done the same. So, we're on the right track, together, at the start. Right?”

“No argument here,” said Devereaux.

“But Harry doesn't come, document in hand. And, on top of that, Tucker Poesy scares him off. Now, here's where I come in. Harry's gone. Someone close to him hires me to find him, and you—since you've obviously got me under your microscope—figure to piggyback on the deal. I'll find Harry and you'll have Tucker Poesy follow me. Simple?”

“Your point being?”

“My point? My point is this whole thing was a charade, a puppet show, and you were pulling all the strings.”

“You think too highly of me.”

“Too highly?” scoffed Walter. “Far from it. I think you're a worthless excuse for a man.” There was contempt in his voice, and anger, a controlled anger. Walter was not about to lose it now—at the end.

“Worthless excuse,” Devereaux repeated slowly, emphasizing each word equally. “Worthless excuse. Let me tell you something. This worthless excuse makes the world safe for hypocritical assholes like you. You sit in your island paradise, hide out in a world you keep to yourself, a world you think you can keep to yourself. And just how does that happen? Tell me. Who makes that possible? Who? A worthless excuse like me. That's who.”

“You're the guy in charge?” Walter mocked him and Devereaux, failing totally to catch the sarcasm in Walter's query, shouted, “You're goddamn right I am!”

“Amazing. You think you know everything, don't you Louie?”

“What I know, what I know—yes, Mr. Locator—it's what I know that keeps you free. Keeps you from going to jail. Keeps the IRS in the dark. Keeps your clients confidential. Keeps your—your Gloria safe. There's no doubt about it. No doubt at all.”

“Ubi dubium ibi libertas,” said Walter.

“Latin? From you? Quite a surprise. I'm a little rusty on mine.”

“Translation—Where there is doubt, there is freedom. Harry Levine gave it to me, right out of Lacey's journal. Poor Harry said it reminded him of Roy Orbison. You know, do the ubi dubi. What kind of man are you, Devereaux? You think you can order the killing of Harry Levine? You think you're so great? You think you're running the world, don't you? You have—a wasted fucking existence. No idea. No clue.”

“Me? A worthless excuse? I have a wasted fucking existence—very funny, coming from you. A little crack in your elaborate façade. I'll have to remember that.”

“Years ago,” Walter continued, in a much calmer tone, his resolve and purpose once more front and center. “When I was sixteen, seventeen—when we all got our driver's licenses—we used to drive into New York City, on a whim. That's a couple of hours, each way from Rhinebeck. One night, we're tooling around town—I'm driving and Bobby Hatton, a friend of mine sitting next to me, says ‘Are we ready?' He could only mean one thing. Drive to New York City. So, I take off for the Taconic Parkway, pathway to the Big Apple. I've got the car. I'm the king of the road. Just like you—I'm in charge. But, my other friend, Joel Adler, in the back seat, he doesn't want to go. He's pissed. He's shouting. He's doing everything short of grabbing me, which would be stupid because I'm driving. Finally, he gives up, gives in, sits back. There's nothing he can do. But Joel doesn't say a word for about an hour. Then, out of nowhere, he said something—you know what he said?” Devereaux looked at Walter with the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips. He held back not wanting to antagonize a man holding a gun on him. “No, of course you don't, Louie. How could you? Joel Adler said to me, ‘You're a shmuk with an empty life.' Think about it. Didn't fit me, that's what I thought. I thought it was very funny. Shmuck with an empty life. Someone like me—with the power? Someone like you—with the power? But my friend Joel—he meant someone with no power, no purpose. In the end, someone with nothing. And that's exactly what you are and where you are. You're a shmuk with an empty life and this is the end.” Devereaux had no reply.

Walter sat down in a chair directly across the room from where Devereaux sat. He kept his gun pointed at him. “When Tucker calls you from Amsterdam, you call Abby O'Malley. She sends that incompetent poor bastard, Sean Dooley, after me. Big mistake, or is it?”

“What are you saying?” Devereaux asked. “You think I had other motives?”

“We'll get to that. You knew Abby O'Malley had been desperate to get Lacey's journal. Her whole life revolved around it. But you also knew she couldn't hurt a fly.” The reference made Walter chuckle. His laughter unsettled Devereaux because he had no idea what it was based in. “Abby would send in a fool. You were sure of that. And that's exactly what she did. The last thing you wanted was for her to get the document. She'd burn it in a New York minute. You were sure I could handle anything she did. You could play with both of us and still come out on top.”

“Can I get a refill on this?” Devereaux asked.

“What are you, fucking crazy? Get a refill! Put the fucking glass down and see if you can't concentrate all your attention over here!”

“I only . . .”

“Louie? Louie—listen to me. This is not a lesson in interrogation. This is it—the major moment. Don't you get it? Let's get back to Holland. When Harry and I take off, you're lost. I'll tell you where we went. I know you're interested.” Walter detailed his trip from Holland to Belgium to Spain and Mexico. Finally, the bus ride to Juarez and across the boarder to El Paso. “I bought a car there and we drove to New Mexico, to the cabin.”

“Nice touch,” said Devereaux.

“Huh?”

“The car. The car. Buying the car. Beautiful.”

“Because you knew everything Abby O'Malley knew, that means you knew I was going back to St. John. She told you that. You knew I was going to meet her there. So, you dispatched Tucker Poesy once more. You told her to find me, get the document and get out. But there was something—something important—you didn't tell Tucker.”

“What was that?”

“I didn't have Lacey's document. Of course I didn't have it. I wouldn't have brought it with me from New Mexico. You knew that too and you saw your chance. You had separated me from Harry—separated me from Lacey's confession—that was the time for your best shot. In the meantime, you thought I'd get rid of an unnecessary part of your changing plan.”

“Really?” said Devereaux trying very hard to sound calm and doing a poor job of it. “And just what was that supposed to be?”

“Tucker Poesy.”

“Ah, The Bambino.”

“The what?” asked Walter, totally perplexed. Devereaux only smiled. “You were right about her,” Walter said. “It's her nature to move on a target. Subtlety is not a weapon in her arsenal. When she struck, you were sure I would kill her. And that's really what you wanted, at that stage of the game. You needed to be rid of her. She no longer served any purpose, and she knew too much.”

“Well,” Devereaux spoke up. “She did, didn't she? Wouldn't you have done likewise? Killed her too? Cleaned up after yourself? No, actually you wouldn't, would you. You're a loner, a cosmic loner. You never clean up, because you never get dirty. See, I told you, Walter. I'm not in your league.”

“So, you sent someone to see me, someone very beautiful, very mysterious, someone pretending to be Aminette Messadou. She was good. I don't know where you found her. One of your actors, I suppose. I hope you didn't tell her too much, because if you did, I'm sure she's dead by now. She gave me quite a colorful story, a really good one. And, through her, you establish a straw man and send me chasing him down an empty road. You divert my attention from Harry. Then you send in another actor of yours, a guy who throws around the name Christopher Hopman. Wow, that's a powerhouse for Isobel Gitlin. Right between the eyes. She has no idea what's hit her. Okay, I can live with that. I can see where you had plenty of information about Leonard Martin, and about me. But you used Isobel in a real bad way. She gave Harry up. She didn't even know him. She didn't know anything.” Walter stopped, took in a deep breath and gazed straight into the eyes of the devil. “You sent someone to kill Harry Levine and take the document. You have the Lacey Confession.”

“Is that a question?”

“No. Not a question. You have it, and it's right here, inside this house.”

“And you're going to do what? Torture me until I tell you where it is? Are you going to slit my throat? No, I forgot, you only do that to teenagers with one leg. Go ahead, Walter. Have your way with me. Cut me, beat me, do anything.” He laughed. Whatever Devereaux was thinking, Walter knew a desperate, frightened laugh when he heard one.

“I'm not going to touch you, Louie. I may kill you, but I won't touch you. I don't torture people. I don't need you to tell me where the document is. I'll find it. Have you forgotten? I'm The Locator.”