Every Man a King

29

Just when I got situated behind the wheel of the car my cell phone rang.

Answering the call I asked, “Are you following me again, Olo?”

“No.” I could hear the subdued smile behind the word. “Just wanted to know where you were.”

“I’m in Yonkers on the way to Rikers Island.”

“What’s there?”

“Alfred Xavier Quiller.”

“What’s that do for you?”

“Among other things, he’s the reason Int-Op turned against us.”

“Yeah, about that, my mentor has maybe found the one who sold us out.”

“You going back to settle up with them?”

“After I finish this job.”

“The way things look, I’m happy to hear it. I’ll see you this evening.”

Possibly the best thing about the Quiller Case was what I learned going to New York City’s prison for the second visit. If I’d had a weak heart, the first time I went to see Quiller would have caused an infarction. But on the second trip I was only mildly nervous. For more than a dozen years I’d been so afraid of Rikers that it colored my dreams, made me wake up in a thousand cold sweats. But the simple act of facing the object of my fears dispelled the bugaboo from my mind. That was a lesson that would last me the rest of my years.

Two different guards met me and showed the way down to the undocumented cell. When the door slammed behind me, I detected an odor. It was bodily but more than that. Not exactly offensive, it was more like a warning.

There was also a mild buzzing sound in the air. Looking up on a shelf he had for a few books, I saw that Quiller had set up a small electric fan, maybe to make it seem that a free breeze was coming from the outer world.

Quiller rose from his chair when I entered the cell. The whites of his eyes had darkened. His hair was tangled and there were streaks of gray throughout that I would have sworn had not been there before. And for some reason, the prisoner couldn’t stand fully erect. It was as if he’d aged a decade or more in a few days.

“Mr. Quiller.”

“Mr. Oliver.” It was the first time he’d used my name.

“May I sit down?”

He nodded at the stool in front of his desk. I sat. Rather than lowering into his chair, he let himself fall backward.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

He laced his fingers before his face, a penitent in desperate prayer.

“They’ve judged me. I’m lost.”

I glanced at the wall and saw that the cockroach I’d seen on the last visit had died only a few inches farther on.

“A federal prosecutor was here,” Quiller said. “I am now officially under arrest. I will be charged with murder and espionage. If I’m lucky, she said, I’ll be sentenced to ADX Florence for life — as long as it lasts. My so-called friends have abandoned me. I have been condemned for my adherence to the truth.” Somehow he managed to keep melodrama out of his tone.

“What about Roger Ferris?”

Quiller smiled. “Even the richest man in the world cannot defy this pack of hyenas.”

I couldn’t argue with the man. This was his domain, his own private tragedy.

“You can’t fight them in open court?” I asked anyway.

“The court won’t be open. I’m a threat to national security. My fate will be sealed in secret.”

We sat in that fearful silence for a very long three or four minutes: the dead cockroach, the condemned convict, and me.

“You met Mathilda?” the doomed philosopher asked at last. His tone was almost hopeful.

“Yeah.”

“She’s an amazing woman, is she not?”

I nodded and said, “What’s confusing is you and her together.”

Alfie could have taken that comment to a very dark place. But all he did was wince and nod.

“I spent an entire lifetime being alone,” he explained. “Then I met Mattie. She never tried to convince me that I was wrong. She just told me that she wouldn’t dignify my arguments with reply. Dignify, with reply. That was what she said. I knew right then I’d been wrongheaded — about everything.”

“Why?” I had to know if he felt the same way I did. There was no reason for the question beyond that.

“She was right,” he said. “I had no dignity.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Quiller?”

“Are you an intelligent man, Mr. Oliver?”

“Compared to what?”

He smiled and then nodded.

I was escorted out by only one guard. His name tag read SILAS. I wondered if that was a first or last name. At the entrance to the visitor center I was about to walk off when Silas touched my forearm.

“This is the last time you’ll be able to see him,” the guard told me.

“Why is that?”

“The tit’s run dry.”

They were waiting at my car. Two men. Both white and of normal build, wearing suits and standing at ease.

“Mr. Oliver,” the one in the lighter-colored cloth said.

“Yeah?”

“What did Quiller say to you?”

“Don’t you have a microphone on him?”

“He put an electric fan in front of it,” said the man in the darker clothes. “He’s smart.”

“He’s my client,” I said lightly. “I wouldn’t want to betray that trust.”

“You’ll never get your money,” the first man said.

“Some things are more important than money.”

“Not if you’re smart,” said the second man.

“Who are you guys?” I asked.

“What did he say?” asked Second.

I took a moment, pretending to consider the request. But there was no choice.

“He asked me to put an ad in the online magazine People-for-People, from an interested aardvark.”

“What was it supposed to say?” asked First.

“T-F-I-A-B-O-A-three-two-one-N.”

“Did he tell you what that meant?” asked Second.

“No,” I lied.

The men stared at me, maybe expecting a mental breakdown under the pressure. I had no doubt that my life was on the line.

“Be careful, Mr. Oliver, these are dangerous times,” Second said.

“You want me to put the ad in?”

“No. We’ll take it from here.”

I drove home happy to be alive and outraged at the kind of world I had to live in.