“No.” Again he pointed upward. “Just fly, Josh.”
“Suits, you’re wasting money—”
“It’s my money, dammit! Some people take tranquilizers or drink when they’re stressed. Others work out or run to their shrinks.
I fly.”
Expensive stress-management technique, I thought. But he had a point: it was his money. “So,” I said, watching the building
grow smaller beneath us, “what’s happened now?”
He sank lower in his seat, cradling his cast with his good hand. “Noah and I took a run over to the Port of Stockton. Noah
… what’d you think of him?”
“I didn’t get a chance to form an impression, other than that he looks ill.”
“He is—heart trouble. Could pop off any minute.” Suits’s mouth curled disapprovingly; he seemed to take Romanchek’s illness
as a sign of weak character. “Looks like the perfect corporate lawyer, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “Not with his checkered past. Used to be a drug lawyer, defended some of the biggest names in the business—successfully.
Proves appearances can deceive even you.”
“I’ve been fooled a time or two. You said you and he went to Stockton?”
Suits’s smile faded. “Yeah. Noah’d prepared the final contract for the guy who was going to be my terminal manager. All I
needed was his signature. I wanted to bring him on board right away; this terminal’s going to be state-of-the-art, and I need
its manager to work with the architects and contractors from the first. But the guy backed out on me.”
“Why?”
“He said word had gotten out about our deal, and his present employer had gone me one better. Bullshit. I know the operation
he works for; they couldn’t’ve topped my terms. I think somebody bought him off.”
On the surface, his reaction to this business reversal seemed extreme. “But you don’t have any proof of that,” I said.
“No, but I’ve got a hell of a lot of coincidence. After Stockton I went back to the office. There was a message from the head
of my architectural firm; I returned the call. He said they’ve run into some snags on their current project that’ll cause
a delay in getting started on mine. He suggested I should think about getting somebody else.”
“When was he supposed to start on the terminal?”
“Next week.”
“He didn’t give you much advance notice.”
“No, and I happen to know he’s already wrapped up this current project.”
“You confront him about that?”
“Sure. He said I must’ve been misinformed and if I wanted I could verify what he told me with the client whose project supposedly
got bogged down.”
“Did you?”
“Why bother? If he’s telling me to verify it, it means the client’s backing him up.”
“All right, I can see why you feel that—”
“You don’t see anything yet. You know the old superstition about disasters coming in threes?”
I nodded.
“About ten minutes after that conversation, I get
another
call. This time it’s one of my moneymen. He’s mumbling about unanticipated losses and shortfall in cash flow—all that kind
of vague bullshit that I know’s bullshit because I’ve slung it a thousand times myself to cover up the fact that I’ve decided
to pull out of a deal that I’m not yet legally committed to. The gist of what he’s saying is, he’s out. You still think this
is simple coincidence?”
“No,” I admitted, “I don’t.”
“You’ve got to make these guys talk. Find out who’s doing this to me.”
“I am trying to find that out. But I doubt I can
make
any of them talk. If they’re stonewalling you, they’re certainly not going to open up for me.”
Suits’s eyes narrowed and a muscle began to tic in his right cheek. “Then find out some other way. Tap their phones, plant
bugs in their offices. What the hell’re you in business for?”
Calm, McCone, I told myself. Keep calm. “Suits, what you’re asking is illegal. I don’t work that way. I suppose I could maintain
legal surveillances on them, but I doubt that would be productive.”
“Then what the fuck
are
you going to do for me?” The words came out high-pitched and shrill.
I looked away, giving him time to compose himself. Realized we’d been circling above the Bay off Alameda Island the whole
time. As the copter turned lazily, I noted bridges: the San Mateo, the Bay, the Richmond. Farther away, draped in mist, were
the Golden Gate and the twin spans at the Carquinez Strait.
When I turned back to Suits, he still looked aggravated, but seemed calmer. I said, “I’m not going to waste my time and your
money maintaining useless surveillances. I do have a couple of leads on the person who attacked you last night, and I’ll pursue
them. But I’m also going to have to look at some background information.”
“On what?”
“Your turnarounds. Your present associates, people you fired from GGL, people who don’t want the line moved from Oakland,
people who don’t want the line moved to San Francisco. Your past associates on past turnarounds, people whose toes you stepped
on back then. You.”
“Me? Why the hell—”
“Because someone’s out to get you, and it feels personal. You
are
the central figure here.”
“Forget it.”
“Suits, I know you’re a private man—”
“You don’t
know
anything about me.”
“More than you think, perhaps. For instance, I know that you went to Harvard.”
A flash of surprise, followed by a scowl. “Who told you that?”
“Russ Zola.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“And I know you got your start by turning a dope farm.”
He included the back of Josh’s head in his scowl. Josh hadn’t reacted to his earlier agitation, and he didn’t react now. As
he’d said, he tuned Suits out when he was flying.
I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about any of those things?”
“I didn’t think you needed a rundown of my life.”
“But even in the old days you didn’t mention about Harvard. None of us knew.”
“I didn’t like to talk about it. I still don’t.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “Look, that was an awful time. Really awful. When I started there I was just a kid who should’ve been out trying
to talk to girls at the Dairy Queen. Hell, I couldn’t even drive yet. And when I got my M.B.A. I was still just a kid—seventeen,
the age when most people
start
college. I had acne and dandruff; I’d never had a friend, I’d never had a date, much less gotten laid. I was a genius; I
was a freak. And that’s all you need to know about my life.”
“But—”
“Uh-uh. Strictly off-limits. I’ll talk about the turnarounds and my associates, but nothing else.”
I wanted to ask him about his drunken ramblings to Carmen—the railroad overpass, the people, the heat lightning on the water—but
I knew this wasn’t the time. There might never be a time for that. Instead I said, “Is there anyone in your organization whom
you trust completely?”
The promptness of his reply surprised me. “My executive assistant in my L.A. office, Dottie Collier.”
“And does she have files on your people and your turnarounds?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need them faxed to me today—as much of them as possible.”
The request didn’t faze him. “Dottie’ll manage it.”
“Good. Now will you ask Josh to drop me at Bay Vista? I want to follow up on those leads I mentioned.”
“You’ll be in touch later?”
“When I know something more.”
“About tonight, I need a place to stay—”
“No.”
“You yourself said my condo’s not safe. If whoever attacked me could get to me there, he can get to me in a hotel.”
And at my house, I thought. I wasn’t concerned for myself so much as for Mick. “Then I’ll find someplace where no one will
think to look for you.” As I spoke, inspiration struck. I turned my face toward the window so he couldn’t see the beginnings
of my wicked grin. “Pack whatever you need and meet me at my office this evening,” I added.
The hiding place I had in mind was perfect. In fact, the only drawback I could perceive was that after one night on the lumpy
old sofa bed in Jack Stuart’s former quarters at All Souls, Suits would be begging the homeless shelters for a space.
* * *
I spent what was left of the afternoon tracking down Bay Vista’s doormen. The man on the midnight-to-eight shift didn’t want
to talk with me; after I paid him ten dollars, all he would tell me was that he’d answered Suits’s cries for help and called
the ambulance. His counterpart on the four-to-midnight shift wasn’t at his apartment in the Inner Sunset; when I finally located
him at a bar on Irving Street that his landlady said he frequented, a shot of scotch bought me only the information that he’d
admitted no unauthorized persons to the building the night before and had seen no strangers take the semiprivate elevator
to the penthouse.
I arrived at my office at a little after five. By then Mick had made himself at home at the desk in the room over the entryway—had
forted himself up there, actually, as if building a wall of his books and pamphlets would make it impossible for me to oust
him. The fax machine whirred as it disgorged a long, curling roll of paper.
Mick looked up from the stack of cut pages he was tapping into alignment. “Did you talk to my mom?”
“You’re here for as long as I need you.”
“Yeeesss!” He raised his fist exultantly.
“Is that”—I motioned at the fax—“from Dottie Collier in L.A.?”
“Yeah. This, too.” He patted the stack on the desk. “She’s already used up almost two rolls of paper.”
“That’s okay; we’ll bill the client.” I took the stack, glanced at the top sheet, and nodded.
“There’re a couple of other things. A lady called from Pacifica, said you’d talked to her this morning.” He studied scribblings
on a scratch pad, then went on. “She saw the guy in the Ryder truck again, asked about the Blessings. He told her he bought
everything in the house from them. They came into some money and left the area, but the guy didn’t know where they went. Does
that make sense?”
“Uh-huh.” Someone had probably paid Bay Vista’s concierge to deliver copies of the keys to the building and to Suits’s penthouse;
by now Blessing and his family would be untraceable. Unless … I looked speculatively at Mick’s bent head.
He added, “A Claudia James from DataBase messengered over some job applications; she wants background checks run on the people.”
He extended a manila envelope to me.
I was so deep in thought that I stared uncomprehendingly at it. Then I took it and removed the apps. Claudia James used to
own my former answering service; when machines threatened to render that business obsolete she sold out, went into computers,
and now had her own firm—whose function I’d yet to figure out. The formal announcement of McCone Investigations’ opening that
I’d sent her last week had already paid off. I looked the applications over: strictly routine.
“Well, let’s get started.” I handed them to Mick.
He looked down at them, blinking. “These’re … mine?”
“Yes.” I pulled a straight-backed chair close to the desk. “I’ll explain what you need to do with them, and tomorrow morning
you’re on your own.”
“On my own,” he said.
“Uh-huh. And after that, how’d you like to try your hand at a skip trace?”
* * *
“Sherry-O?”
“Yes?” The tartness had long ago gone out of my voice; Suits’s plaintive queries, addressed to me from the door of my office,
had worn me down. It was all I could do to keep my burning eyes on the pages in front of me.
“Are you sure it’s okay to hang my towel just anyplace in there?” The towel he referred to was one Ted had earlier loaned
him; “there” was All Souls’s second-floor communal bathroom.
“Anyplace, Suits.” I highlighted a phrase and read doggedly on. He was still in the doorway, though; I could hear him breathing.
“What else?”
“I need to make a call.”
I motioned toward my phone.
“Privately.”
“My nephew’s office.” I waved toward the door.
“Thank you.” It was as humble a tone, I was sure, as Suits had ever managed.
I read on.
From the other side of the wall I could hear the drone of his voice. I pressed my palm to my ear and leaned on my elbow; it
helped, but not much. Suits droned. I read. And suddenly he was quiet. I stretched my arms, looked at my watch. Ten-thirty.
Another page and I’d be finished with this stack. I’d bundle up the other, take it home to go over in front of the fire.
Suits’s voice started in again, this time through the wall that separated my office from Ted’s Baroque cubbyhole. Probably
checking again on towel-hanging proprieties, I thought. Ted’s voice responded, but only briefly. Suits said something else,
went on and on.
I gathered the other papers, crammed them into my briefcase. Put on my jacket and tiptoed into the hall. Ted’s door was open;
as I flicked off my lights, I heard him say, “Well, how do you feel about that?”
No reply from Suits.
Ted remained silent, waiting him out.
My God, I thought, he’s practicing therapy on him!
For quite some time now Ted, a gay man who had lost many friends and two former lovers to the AIDS epidemic, had been severely
depressed. In July I’d referred him to a therapist friend, who in turn had referred him to a grief counselor. While there
had been no dramatic change in Ted’s emotional state as yet, he suffered from fewer of what he called his black-and-blue days,
and occasionally I caught a glimpse of the cheerful, quixotic man of old. An unnerving side effect of his counseling sessions,
however, was his tendency to play amateur psychologist to anyone who confessed to having so much as a hangnail.
“I think—” Suits began.
“No, how do you
feel
?”
I stood quietly outside the door, hoping that Suits might open up to Ted and tell him something that would give me insight
into the side of himself he kept so carefully hidden.
Suits said, “I feel like I ought to go to bed now.”
Before he could step into the hall, I hurried past the door and down the stairs.