An Absence of Light

Chapter 57

They crowded into the darkroom, Graver, Arnette, Neuman, who was still trying to absorb what had been revealed to him in the three common little houses on Rauer Street, and Boyd, who was handling the canister. In the room’s cool redness everyone looked pale and conspiratorial, intent on the object in Boyd’s hands.

“You don’t think this is some kind of bomb, a booby trap, do you?” Boyd mused, only half in jest as he put the first twist on the cap. No one said anything.

“I just want to know if it’s film,” Graver said. “Then I’ll get out of your way.”

It was a long-threaded cap, as was customary with such waterproofed containers, and when it finally came free Boyd laid it on the worktable. Holding it over his opened hand, he turned it over in the palm of his hand, and a tightly coiled, shiny black scroll fell into his hand.

“It’s film,” he said. “Already developed.” He stretched out the roll between his hands, one high in the air, the other down below his waist. “Microfilm.”

“Okay, that’s good enough for me,” Graver said. “How long will it take you to get something.”

“I can get you the first frame-microfiche-in about twenty minutes.”

They stepped out of the darkroom leaving Boyd to his magic and walked around the corner to the main computer room. Every work station was being used and the room was chattering with keystrokes. Quinn was at her radio, writing in a notebook, and speaking with professional ennui into her pencil-sized microphone. Neuman took it in quickly, trying not to gawk, but naturally wanting to see as much as possible. Arnette smiled and stopped.

“This is Quinn,” she said to Neuman, but not interrupting the girl for an introduction. “Right now she’s fielding reports from the South Shore Harbor. We’ve got stringers, much like a newspaper does. When something big like that happens they bring us up to speed. Every call is computer-recorded and the reports are tallied and the information is assigned a value, very much like a value code is given to an informant or a source. We keep track of both the quality and the volume of information from each stringer. Sometimes that pays off in ways you wouldn’t expect.”

She walked around the room slowly, clockwise.

“These two women are working on Tisler’s computer data. This is still a very long shot,” she said, looking at Graver, “but they’ve gotten through some doors, made some progress. Over here, this guy’s working on trying to ID the guy who met Burtell at the Transco Fountain. We haven’t found him, but we’re getting updates on these people so it’s actually a useful exercise for us. It’s been a while since I updated my photo file, and it’s expensive, so you don’t want to do it without a good reason.

“Dani,” she said, pointing to the girl at the next station, “is running leads on Brod Strasser. You guys stumbled onto some of the most reclusive boys in the business. Take Kalatis. We think he bought a place in the Houston area around 1989. We think he’s been spending about half his time here since then, but we can’t verify it Our real estate stringers say they don’t think so, that there are no shell residential purchases they can’t open up. They’re wrong, but we can’t prove it He owns a private plane, a Desault Falcon. We know that it’s in the name of his pilot, a former Israeli Air Force instructor. We know when he leaves Colombia in that thing… and that’s all we know. Once, in 1989, we nailed it at Hobby. It stayed there three days. Now, I know the guy’s been back here in it, but we can’t prove it We think he’s paying off an air traffic controller in Honduras-Tegucigalpa. He enters the country at that little narrow Gulf of Fonseca, crosses Honduras, and comes out over the Bay Islands as somebody else. Then to be safe, he’s using a private strip somewhere around Houston instead of one of the airports. But we can’t prove it.”

She stopped without explaining anything about the last three or four work stations.

“And it goes on and on,” she said. “We’re always chasing down something.”

She headed toward the library and Graver and Neuman followed. As they walked in, Graver’s handset that he had left on the library table was buzzing. He picked it up. It was Paula.

“Graver, everything went okay with Heath. She’s gone. But as soon as we got back to your place Ginette Burtell drove up right behind us. She’s hysterical. She thought you’d be home. She says she thinks that Dean is dead. She’s really unglued. Lara’s with her.”

Graver’s heart sank.

“Why does she think he’s dead?”

“That explosion. Local stations broke into network programming with it. She says Dean kept a boat in a slip at South Shore Harbor.”

“Christ.”

“I think you’d better get over here. She says she has something to tell you. Apparently Dean had been afraid the last few days. She says he had given her a message to give to you in the event of his death. I think she’s frightened, too. I don’t know… there seems to be more to this. I think you’d better get over here.”

“Did she wonder why you and Lara were at my place?”

“Yeah, but I just told her we were in the middle of something. You’d better come on.”

“Okay, I’m coming right now.”

“You heard from Neuman?” There was an edge of concern in Paula’s voice.

“He’s with me. He got something from Sheck’s. I’ll fill you in when I get there.”