A Quiet Vendetta

EIGHTEEN

The storm had not abated. Rain hammered down relentlessly, and when Hartmann was escorted from the FBI Field Office across town to the Royal Sonesta – a convoy of three cars, himself in the central vehicle with Woodroffe, Schaeffer and Sheldon Ross – he imagined himself more the guilty party than the confessor. For that’s what he was being, was he not? Confessor to Ernesto Perez, a man who had filled his life with as many nightmares as was perhaps possible for one human being.

‘I cannot believe this,’ Woodroffe had kept repeating, and was even now saying it again as they drove. ‘Jimmy Hoffa’s murder must be one of the most significant unsolved murders of all time-’

‘Apart from Kennedy,’ Ross had interjected, a comment that provoked scowls of disapproval from both Woodroffe and Schaeffer. Hartmann imagined that the party line in and amongst the Bureau was that J. Edgar Hoover and the Warren Commission had been right all along. It was, he could only suppose, one of those topics of conversation that did not occur among these people. They believed what they believed, but what they believed stayed inside their heads and did not venture from their lips.

‘Jimmy fucking Hoffa… Christ al-fucking-mighty,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I remember it. I remember it happening. I remember all the speculation, the newspaper reports, the theories about what had happened to him.’

‘You must have been in your teens,’ Schaeffer said.

‘Regardless,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I remember it well. And when I came into the Bureau and started reading files that related to organized crime that name came up again and again. That was the big question… what the hell happened to Jimmy Hoffa? I can’t believe that Perez was the one who actually killed him. And that Charles Ducane, the fucking governor of Louisiana, knew about it… in effect sanctioned it-’

‘And was gonna send Gerard McCahill down to do it,’ Hartmann said, which seemed to him the most relevant point, and the one everyone seemed to be unwilling to face.

‘Enough,’ Schaeffer said. ‘We have no evidence of that.’

‘But we know that pretty much everything Perez has said so far has proven to be true,’ Woodroffe retorted.

‘Supposition,’ Schaeffer replied. ‘We do not know that everything he has said is true, and right now we are investigating Ernesto Perez, not Charles Ducane. As far as I am concerned Charles Ducane and his daughter are the victims of a crime, as is Gerard McCahill, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.’

‘There’s also the fact of how McCahill’s body was found,’ Hartmann said.

‘How so?’ Woodroffe asked.

‘The drawing on his back… the constellation of Gemini. That was the word they used when they referred to the hit on Hoffa… they referred to it as Gemini. I figure that must have been done to remind Ducane that his involvement had not been forgotten.’

‘Again supposition,’ Schaeffer said. ‘We don’t know anything for a fact. All we have to go on is the word of one man, and he’s as crazy as they come.’

‘Well shit,’ Hartmann said. ‘There goes one of life’s great mysteries,’ and that seemed to kill the subject stone-dead. There was silence for a moment. Hartmann looked out of the window. In the back of his mind he could see the image of the constellation glowing on McCahill’s back, and then he thought of Ernesto Perez standing over the dead body of Stefano Cagnotto. For a heartbeat he was back in the motel with Luca Visceglia, a motel out near Calvary Cemetery the night before an affidavit was due to be sworn. He knew how someone looked when they’d been forcibly overdosed.

‘Now we gotta find the wife,’ Schaeffer said. He looked over at Hartmann in the back seat. ‘See if you can’t get him to tell you something more about the wife. She’s gotta be around somewhere.’

‘And the kid… boy, girl, whatever, they’ve gotta be in their early twenties now,’ Woodroffe said.

‘I’ve got FBI Trace alerted,’ Schaeffer added. ‘They’ll find her, we just don’t have a realistic estimate on how long it will take. They’ll go back as far as they need to. Fact of the matter is that there’s no-one in this country who can’t be traced eventually.’

‘Except for Perez himself,’ Woodroffe said, and Schaeffer cut him a look that silenced him immediately.

‘I don’t think we can rely on Perez’s wife being any part of this,’ Hartmann said.

‘And what brings you to that conclusion?’ Schaeffer asked.

‘Perez is too smart to involve his own family. That would be too close to home.’

‘Regardless, it’s something,’ Schaeffer said, ‘and in this situation we follow everything, no matter how unrelated it might seem right now.’

‘And that includes Charles Ducane?’ Hartmann asked, and though it was a question it was as good as rhetoric because he knew how Schaeffer would respond.

Schaeffer just turned and looked at him. The expression on the man’s face was cold and aloof, but beneath that there was something tired and beaten. ‘You wanna get into this again?’ he asked Hartmann.

‘Do I want to?’ Hartmann asked. ‘No, I sure as hell don’t. I don’t want to get into any of it. In fact I’d much prefer to just step away from the whole thing and go back to New York right now.’

‘We find the girl,’ Schaeffer said.

‘And then?’

Schaeffer raised his eyebrows.

‘And then someone is talking to Ducane?’ Hartmann asked.

Schaeffer closed his eyes and sighed. ‘Whether or not someone talks to Ducane is entirely up to someone else,’ he replied.

‘And none of us here are gonna take any responsibility for that at all, right? You’ve heard what I’ve heard-’

Schaeffer raised his hand. ‘Enough already,’ he said. ‘I’m doing one thing at a time, I’m following the brief I’ve been given… and right now the only thing that bears any relevance to anything is Catherine Ducane.’

‘So we’re gonna let it all slide once we find the girl?’

Woodroffe leaned forward. ‘Ray… just drop it for now, okay? We go do this meeting with Perez, we do everything we have to do until we’ve got the girl back, and then-’

Hartmann interjected. ‘It’s okay. I’m not saying anything else. It isn’t my job to decide who runs this country anyway.’

Schaeffer didn’t respond; figured it was better that he didn’t. This was a circular conversation, and right in the middle of it was a great number of things that none of them really wanted to know.

The journey was brief, made longer simply by the rainfall; the streets were flooding against the storm drains, and here and there Hartmann saw people hurrying through the downpour in some vain effort to avoid the worst of it. It was hopeless, the heavens had opened wide, and everything that was available was being focused on New Orleans. Perhaps God, in His infinite wisdom, was attempting to clean the place up. It wouldn’t work: too much blood had been spilled on this land for it to be anything other than a small reflection of Hell.

The convoy pulled up outside the Royal Sonesta. Hartmann was out and running towards the front entrance, and there he was met by three federal agents. Inside there were four more, all of them armed, all of them clones of one another, and Hartmann realized how much attention and money was being devoted to this operation.

Now he was being placed in a supremely untenable position. He knew, with more certainty than most other things in his life, that Perez was not here to barter for the life of the girl. That was the very least of his interests. Perez was not here to avoid jail or the death sentence or anything else the justice community could throw at him. Perez was here to tell a story and to make a point. What that point was, well that was anybody’s guess. Hartmann had reconciled himself to giving it the best he had, and if the best wasn’t good enough then they could have someone else come in and do the job.

One of the agents took his overcoat and handed him a towel.

‘Fucked-up weather,’ Hartmann said and started to dry his hair and the back of his neck.

The agent just looked back at him implacably and said nothing.

Where the fuck do they get these people? Hartmann wondered. Maybe they have a factory out near Quantico where they just breed them from the same stem cells.

Hartmann returned the towel and straightened his hair.

Woodroffe appeared beside him, Schaeffer close behind.

‘You gonna give me a wire?’ Hartmann asked.

‘The entire fucking hotel is wired,’ Schaeffer said. ‘There are five floors to this place and Perez is up on top. We have to use the stairs because the elevators have been immobilized. The first four floors are locked at all exits and entries. All the windows are sealed from within, and up on the fifth there are something in the region of twenty agents spread out in the corridors and the rooms on either side of Perez. Inside Perez’s room there are three agents who keep watch from the main room. Perez uses the bedroom, the bathroom adjacent to it, and sometimes he comes into the front to watch TV and play cards with our people. Food is brought to him from the kitchens in the basement, and it goes up the stairs just like everything else.’

‘You have created a fortress for him,’ Hartmann said.

‘Well, he sure as hell ain’t gonna get out… and no-one is gonna come in to get him.’

Hartmann frowned. ‘And who might want to come in?’

Woodroffe glanced at Schaeffer. Schaeffer shook his head. ‘I have no idea, Mr Hartmann, but this guy has been full of enough surprises so far that we just ain’t taking any risks.’

‘So it’s up the stairs we go,’ Hartmann said, and made his way across the foyer to the base of the well.

‘Mr Hartmann?’ Schaeffer called after him.

Hartmann slowed and turned.

‘I understand your reservations about this, and I can’t say that I believe this will accomplish anything, but we got a girl out there, a teenage girl who could be still alive, and until we know for sure what the hell happened to her we still have to do everything we can.’

Hartmann nodded. ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I know that as well as anyone here, and I will do everything I can. The truth is that I feel this won’t accomplish anything for us… won’t accomplish anything for her.’

‘Just do your best, eh?’ Schaeffer said.

‘Sure,’ Hartmann said, and with that he turned and started up the stairs, two of the Feds from the foyer with him, and it wasn’t until he reached the fifth floor, wasn’t until he stood three feet from Perez’s door, that he understood the significance of what he was about to do. What he said now could serve to turn Perez against them, to make him unwilling to speak, and if he did not speak he would never finish telling them of his life, and Hartmann believed that that had been the entire purpose of kidnapping the girl in the first place.

From wanting to be somebody to believing he was somebody to a sense of loss that he was nobody once again.

Was this now nothing more than the last-ditch attempt of an old man, albeit crazy, to make something of himself before the lights went down for the last time?

Hartmann glanced at the expressionless agent beside him. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said quietly, and the agent leaned forward and knocked on the door.

From the bedroom came the lilting sound of a piano.

Hartmann frowned.

Inside the first room were three more of Schaeffer’s crew, all of them seasoned veterans by the look of them. The one nearest the door greeted Hartmann, shook his hand, introduced himself as Jack Dauncey. Dauncey seemed genuinely pleased to see someone from the outside world, perhaps someone who was not part of the FBI.

‘He’s inside,’ Dauncey said. ‘We told him you were coming over… you know what he asked us?’

Hartmann shook his head.

‘If you’d be staying for supper.’

Hartmann smiled. ‘A character, huh?’

‘A character? He’s one in a million, Mr Hartmann.’ Dauncey smiled and crossed the room. He knocked on the door and within a moment the music was lowered in volume.

‘Come!’ Perez commanded, and Dauncey opened the door.

The room had been assembled as both a sitting area and bedroom. The bed was pushed against the left-hand wall, and over on the right was a table, two chairs, a sofa and a music center. It was from this that the lilting piano was coming.

‘Shostakovich,’ Perez said as he rose from his chair and walked towards Hartmann. ‘You know Shostakovich?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘Not personally, no.’

Perez smiled. ‘You people defend ignorance with humor. Shostakovich was a Russian composer. He died a long time ago. This piece is entitled “Assault On Beautiful Gorky”, and it was written in commemoration of the storming of the Winter Palace. It is beautiful, no? Beautiful, and altogether very sad.’

Hartmann nodded. He walked across to the table and sat down at one of the chairs.

Perez followed him, sat facing him, and but for the music they could have been seated once more in the FBI Field Office.

‘Perhaps we should conduct our interviews here from now on,’ Perez said. ‘It would save all the trouble of ferrying me back and forth surrounded by all these federal people, none of whom, I can assure you, have the slightest shred of humor, and it would be so much more comfortable, no?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘It would. I’ll suggest it to Schaeffer and Woodroffe.’

Perez smiled and reached for his cigarettes. He offered one to Hartmann. Hartmann took it, retrieved his lighter from his jacket pocket and lit them both.

‘How are they bearing up?’ Perez asked.

‘Who?’

‘Mr Schaeffer and Mr Woodroffe.’

Hartmann frowned. ‘Bearing up?’

‘Sure. They must be feeling the stress of the situation, yes? They have found themselves in perhaps the most uncomfortable set of circumstances of their collective careers. They must be feeling a tremendous amount of pressure, with the girl gone and all manner of high and mighty people breathing down their necks demanding results, results, results. I can only begin to imagine how they must feel.’

‘Stressed,’ Hartmann said, ‘like the Brooklyn Bridge.’

Perez laughed. ‘You are good, Mr Hartmann. I knew very little of you before we met, very little indeed, but since we have been spending this time together I have grown to like you.’

‘I’m flattered.’

‘And so you should be… there are very few people I can say that I honestly like in this world. I have seen too many crazy things in my time, things people have done for no apparent reason at all, to make me believe that human beings are all as equally lost as one another.’

‘Why me?’ Hartmann asked.

Perez leaned back and looked at Hartmann. ‘This question intrigues you. I have seen it playing amongst your thoughts from the first day. You want to know why it was that I asked you to come down here and listen to me when I could have asked any number of people and any one of them would have come?’

Hartmann nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why did you choose me?’

‘Three reasons,’ Perez stated matter-of-factly. ‘First and foremost, because you are from New Orleans. You are a Louisianan, just like me. I am of Cuban descent, granted, but irrespective of that I was born here in New Orleans. New Orleans, like it or not, has always been my original home, my place of origin. And there is something about this place that only those who were born here, only those who have spent their formative years here, can truly understand. It has a voice and a color and an atmosphere all its own. It is like no other place on earth. There is such a blend of people here, faiths and beliefs, languages and ethnic strains, that makes it truly unique. In a way it possesses no singular identifying characteristic, and thus it cannot be easily identified. It is a paradox, a puzzle, and people who visit can never really grasp what makes it so different. It is a place you either love or hate, and once you have decided your feelings for it there is nothing that can change them.’

‘And you?’ Hartmann asked. ‘Do you love it or hate it?’

Perez laughed. ‘I am an anomaly and an anachronism. I am the exception that proves the rule. I have no feeling for it at all. I cannot love it and I cannot hate it. Now, having seen all I have seen, there is almost nothing to love or to hate in this world.’

‘And the second reason?’

‘Family,’ Perez said, and he spoke quietly, but there was such intention and emphasis behind this single word that it hit Hartmann forcibly.

‘Family?’ he asked.

Perez nodded. He reached forward and flicked his cigarette ash in the tray.

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You do,’ Perez said, ‘perhaps better than anyone who’s involved in this. You understand the strength and power of family.’

‘How so?’

‘Come on, Mr Hartmann, you cannot deny what you know is true. What about your mother and father? What about Danny?’

Hartmann’s eyes opened wide. ‘Danny?’ he asked. ‘How the fuck d’you know about Danny?’

‘The same way I know about Carol and Jessica.’

Hartmann was speechless. He looked at Perez with an expression of abject incredulity.

‘Come, come, Mr Hartmann, don’t act so surprised. I am not a stupid man. You do not live the life I have lived and survive by being stupid. I may have done some things that you find difficult to comprehend, but that does not make me crazy or ignorant or unprepared. I am a methodical and systematic man. I am a planner, a thinker. I may have worked with my hands, but the work I have done has been for the greater part cerebral in its execution.’

‘A suitable turn of phrase,’ Hartmann said.

‘Execution? No pun intended,’ Perez said. ‘There are some people who are born for particular things, Mr Hartmann, things such as politics and art, even Shostakovich who managed to combine the two and have something of worth to say, and then there are some who fall into a path which is somehow not of their own choosing.’

‘And where would you place yourself?’

‘The latter, of course,’ Perez replied. He ground his cigarette out and lit another. ‘Events conspired perhaps, I am not sure. Perhaps when I die it will all become plain and evident and I will understand everything. Possibly events conspire to make us who we are, but then again I sometimes think that subconsciously we possess the power to influence events and circumstances around us, and in this way we actually determine, for the greater part, exactly what happens to us.’

‘I can’t say I have that philosophic a viewpoint about it,’ Hartmann said.

‘Well, consider it from this perspective.’ Perez leaned back in his chair. He seemed as relaxed as he could be. ‘Your own situation is a perfect example. Your father’s death, the death of your younger brother, the work you have done for most of your adult life. Are these things the factors that contributed to your difficulty, or was the difficulty there all along merely waiting for the necessary force majeure to cause it to surface?’

‘My difficulty?’

‘The drinking,’ Perez stated.

‘The drinking?’ Hartmann asked, once again unsettled by the degree to which Perez knew the details of his life.

‘The drinking, yes. The difficulty that you have struggled with for so many years, and the thing that finally prompted the departure of your wife and daughter.’

Hartmann felt disturbed and tense. ‘What about my wife and daughter? What do you know about them?’

Perez shook his head and smiled. ‘Do not worry yourself, Mr Hartmann. Your wife and daughter have absolutely nothing to do with this matter. I understand the sense of responsibility you feel towards them-’

‘Like your own wife and child, Mr Perez?’ Hartmann interjected, realizing that here was an appropriate opportunity to pursue this line of inquiry.

‘My wife and child?’ Perez asked. ‘We were not talking about my wife and child, Mr Hartmann, we were talking about yours.’

Hartmann nodded. ‘I know, but considering we are discussing this area I find the fact that you have a wife and child tremendously fascinating.’

Perez frowned.

‘Your line of work, the things that you did… how could you go home and look your wife in the face knowing that only hours before you had murdered someone?’

‘I imagine much the same way you managed it,’ Perez said.

‘Me? What do you mean? I never murdered anyone.’

‘But you lied and you deceived her, and you pretended to be something you were not. You made promises and then you broke them, I am sure. It is the same with anyone who carries a shadow, Mr Hartmann, whether it be alcoholism or gambling or infidelity. Whatever the shadow that might haunt them, they are still effectively leading a double life.’

‘But you killed people. You went out with the intention to murder and you did so. I think that is very different from having a drink problem.’

Perez shrugged. ‘Depends on your personal philosophy… whether you consider that events conspire to make you who you are, or if you are someone who believes that Man possesses the ability to determine events by his own power of mind.’

‘We are getting off the subject,’ Hartmann said, at once intrigued and very uncomfortable.

‘Indeed we are,’ Perez said, ‘though I must admit that I believe family to be as important a subject of discussion as you do.’

‘Okay then,’ Hartmann said. ‘What about the girl?’

Perez looked up. ‘What about the girl?’

‘She is part of someone’s family. She has a mother and a father.’

‘And a cat and a dog. And she can play the piano, and she likes talking to her girlfriends about boys and clothes and cosmetics.’

‘Right… what about her? What about her family?’

‘What about them?’

‘You profess to believe in the necessity and importance of family. Have you considered how they must feel?’

Perez smiled once more and leaned forward. He rested his hands on the table and steepled his fingers together. ‘Mr Hartmann, I have considered everything.’

‘So?’

Perez raised his eyebrows.

‘So is how they feel important?’

‘Of vital importance, yes,’ Perez replied.

‘So is what you are doing perhaps not the most disturbing and upsetting thing that you could do?’

Perez laughed, but there was seemingly nothing malicious in his tone. ‘That, Mr Hartmann, is precisely the point of the exercise.’

‘To upset Charles Ducane and his ex-wife as much as possible?’

Perez waved his hand. ‘The wife, Eve I believe her name is, how she feels is of no significance to me. But Charles Ducane… he is a different story altogether.’

‘How so?’

‘Because he is as guilty as I, and yet here he is, governor of Louisiana, sitting up there in his mansion with the world protecting him, and I am here, ensconced within a small fortress, protected from the world by the might of the FBI, and having to justify my existence to you, an alcoholic paralegal who is ashamed of the fact that he was born in New Orleans.’

Hartmann reached for another cigarette. He believed he needed to change the pitch of the discussion before Perez became angry. ‘I find it remarkable that you were responsible for the death of Jimmy Hoffa.’

Perez nodded. ‘He died, someone had to have killed him. Why not me?’

‘Did you shoot Kennedy as well?’

‘Which one?’

Hartmann smiled. ‘You did them both?’

‘Neither, though I believe that I would have gotten away with it, unlike Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan, neither of whom were ultimately responsible whatever J. Edgar Hoover and the Warren Commission might have reported. The assassination of John Kennedy, the resultant mystery that has surrounded his death for the last forty years, has to be the most spectacular and successful example of government disinformation propaganda that has ever been achieved. Adolf Hitler would have been proud of what your government has accomplished with that. Wasn’t it he who said that the greater the lie the more easily it will be believed?’

‘It’s your government too,’ Hartmann said.

‘I am selective… it is the lesser of two evils. The United States or Fidel Castro. I am still trying to make a decision as to which one I would prefer to be allied to.’

Hartmann was quiet for a moment. He smoked his cigarette.

Perez broke the silence between them. ‘So you did not come here to visit or to have supper, or to smoke my cigarettes, Mr Hartmann. I believe you came here with a proposal.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It is about time for the attorney general to play his best hand, and like I said before, you do not live the life I have lived and survive by being stupid. So out with it. What is it they are prepared to offer me?’

‘Clemency,’ Hartmann said, believing that the entire conversation had been predicted and determined by Perez from the off. This was not the way Hartmann had wanted to handle it, but it had become something out of his control. He had believed his cards were hidden, but he had sat down at the table unaware that his cards had been chosen for him by his opponent.

‘Clemency?’ Perez asked. ‘Mercy? You think this is what I came here to ask for?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

‘I came here of my own volition. I handed myself in to you people with no resistance. I could have continued to live my life, could have done nothing. Had I not called the FBI, had I not spoken with these people, had I not asked for you to come here, then we would not be having this conversation. I could have taken the girl, I could have killed her, and no-one would ever have been any the wiser.’

‘They would have found you,’ Hartmann interjected.

Perez started laughing. ‘You think so, Mr Hartmann? You really think they would have found me? I am nearly seventy years old. I have been doing this for the better part of five and a half decades. I was the man who killed your Jimmy Hoffa. I put a piano wire around his neck and pulled so hard I could feel where the wire stopped against the vertebrae of his neck. I did these things, and I did them all over this country, and these people didn’t even know my name.’

Hartmann knew Perez was right. He had not lived this life and survived by being stupid. If he had wanted to kill Catherine Ducane he would have done, and Hartmann imagined the murder would have gone unsolved.

‘Okay,’ Hartmann said. ‘So this is the deal… you give us the girl, you are extradited to Cuba, and the United States Federal Government will not further any information about your past to the Cuban Justice Department. That’s the deal, take it or leave it.’

Perez leaned back in his chair. He looked pensive for some time, said nothing, and when he turned his eyes towards Hartmann there was something cold and aloof in them that Hartmann had not seen before. ‘You will come back tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘We will meet in the morning as planned. I will tell you some more things of myself and my life, and when we are done we will return here for dinner, you and I, and I will give you my answer.’

Hartmann nodded. ‘Can you tell us one thing?’

Perez raised his eyebrows.

‘The girl. Can you assure us she is still alive?’

Perez shook his head. ‘No, I cannot.’

‘She is dead?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You are saying nothing?’

‘That is right, I am saying nothing.’

‘If she is dead it makes this whole thing rather pointless,’ Hartmann said.

‘It is only pointless to those who do not yet understand the point,’ Perez replied. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I am tired. I would like to rest. I have an appointment in the morning, and if I am tired I do not concentrate well.’

Hartmann nodded and started to rise from his chair.

‘It has been a pleasure, Mr Hartmann,’ Perez said. ‘And I trust that things work out for yourself and your family.’

‘Thank you, Mr Perez, though I do not necessarily feel I can reciprocate the sentiment.’

Perez waved Hartmann’s comment aside. ‘It is of no matter to me what you think, Mr Hartmann. Some of us are more than capable of making our own decisions and allowing life to intervene as little as possible.’

Hartmann did not reply. There was nothing more he could say. He walked back to the door of the bedroom and let himself out.

Behind him the music increased in volume – Shostakovich’s ‘Assault On Beautiful Gorky’ – and Hartmann looked at Dauncey with a somewhat bemused and mystified expression.

‘Like I said before, a real character,’ Dauncey said, and opened the hotel suite door to let Hartmann out into the corridor.

The rain finally stopped around ten. Hartmann sat on the edge of his bed in the Marriott Hotel and considered the awkward slow-motion war-zone of his life. Carol and Jess were not happy with him; Schaeffer and Woodroffe, Attorney General Richard Seidler and FBI Director Bob Dohring were not happy with him either. By now Charles Ducane would surely know Hartmann’s name, and believe him to be the man responsible for the safe return of his daughter. And what about Charles Ducane? Had he really been involved with these people? Organized crime? The murder of Jimmy Hoffa? The killing of McLuhan and the two people in the Shell Beach Motel back in the fall of ’62? Was Charles Ducane as much a part of this as Ernesto Perez?

Hartmann undressed and took a shower. He stood beneath the water, as hot as he could bear, and stayed there for some time. He thought of Carol and Jess, of how much he would have given to hear their voices now, to know they were safe, to say he was sorry, to tell them that he was in some way undergoing a catharsis, an exorcism of who he had once been, and that from this point forward it would be different. It would all be so different.

Ray Hartmann, for a short while, was overcome with a sense of desperation and despondency. Was this now his life? Alone? Hotel rooms? Government inquiries and investigations? Spending his days listening to the worst that people had to offer and trying to make deals with them?

He sat in the base of the unit. The water flooded over him. He could hear his own heart beating. He felt afraid.

Later, lying on the bed, he fought with a sense of restless agitation and did not sleep until the early hours of Thursday morning. His mind was punctuated with strange images, images of Ernesto Perez carrying Jess’s lifeless body out of a swamp while Shostakovich played the piano in the background.

And then morning invaded his room, and he rose, he dressed, he drank two cups of strong black coffee, and he and Sheldon Ross – who now looked ten years older than the young fresh-faced recruit he had first seen only a handful of days before – made their way back to the office on Arsenault Street to hear what the world and all its madness had to offer them today.

And it was only as he passed through the narrow doorway into the all-too-familiar office that he remembered that there were three reasons. Three reasons Perez had chosen to bring him here to New Orleans. Perez had told him two of them, and Hartmann – amid all that had been said – had forgotten to ask for the third.

It was the first thing he asked Perez when they were seated.

Perez smiled with that knowing expression in his eyes.

‘Later,’ he said quietly. ‘I will tell you the last reason later… perhaps when we are done, Mr Hartmann.’

When we are done, Hartmann echoed. It sounded so final, so utterly conclusive.

‘So we shall share a little of California,’ Perez said. ‘Because I believe that sharing is a truly Californian trait, is it not?’ Perez smiled at his own dry humor and leaned back in his chair. ‘And when we are done we will return to the hotel. We will share some supper and then I will give you the answer to your proposal.’

Hartmann nodded.

He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to see his daughter’s face.

He struggled but it did not come.