Death Angels

30

THEY WERE RIDING THE NORTHBOUND TRAIN. IT WAS EARLY afternoon, and nobody else was in their car. Winter saw someone jog across Wandsworth Common wearing shorts and a light sweatshirt that puffed out in the wind and flapped against his back. He thought he recognized the man from yesterday and from the morning train. Maybe he was a lunatic who ran back and forth hour after hour.

The Hilliers had changed their minds at the last minute. Winston couldn’t handle talking to them. Maybe another day.

The south side was flashing by again. He had become a commuter. “When does Jamie’s mother get back?” he asked, watching a station come and go.

“In two weeks,” Macdonald answered.

“And you can’t find his father?”

“No. That’s quite common.”

When they got off at Victoria Station, Winter pointed out the tattered notice. Macdonald tore it off and threw it in a trash container.

“Are you going to put up a new one?”

Macdonald shrugged. “Probably. Worn-out pictures are like worn-out memories-nothing to go by.”

“There’s a poet in you.”

“The poet laureate of crime detection.”

They took the underground to Green Park and made their way through the catacombs to the escalator. The daylight stunned their eyes.

“The Queen lives over there.” Macdonald nodded toward the park. “The humble servant of all her subjects, the Scots as well as the English.”

“What about the Irish and the Welsh?”

“Them too.”

They took a cab east, up Piccadilly and into Soho.

Frankie sat in his office by a blank computer screen.

“It crashed,” he said after Macdonald had introduced him to Winter.

“Cheap crap,” Macdonald said. “Didn’t I tell you to steer clear of English hardware?”

“As if the Scottish were any better.”

“No doubt about it.”

“Give me an example.”

“Macintosh.”

“I’ve heard that one before. May I offer you some exclusive Caribbean tea?”

“Give me a break. Tea from the Caribbean? May as well make me some coffee grown in Sweden.”

Frankie glanced over at Winter, who threw up his hands in disavowal. “I’ve asked around a little, as discreetly as I could.”

Macdonald nodded.

“I was amazed at how low people can stoop.”

“Cut out the hypocrisy.”

“Here I am, walking the straight and narrow, and I ask myself every now and then what happened to all those customers who used to beat down my door.”

Winter heard a shout in the hallway, a plea for help. Someone else laughed and said something he couldn’t make out.

“I’m not talking about child porn or anything like that,” Frankie continued.

“Stop with the crap,” Macdonald said.

“I’m talking about outright torture.”

“Torture?”

“Torture.”

“What kind of torture?”

Frankie started to rock back and forth as if listening to music.

“Frankie,” Macdonald pleaded.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

The back of Winter’s head felt numb.

“Frankie,” Macdonald said again.

“I’m just telling you what I heard, that somebody in London sells movies that contain torture scenes, and they’re the real thing.”

“Any names?”

“Forget it.”

“You could be in danger here. Keep that in mind.”

“I realize that. But that makes it even more important for me to ask questions. You’ve been around the block a few times, Steve. You know I can’t reveal my sources to you and this pretty Swedish boy of yours. They don’t know any more than I do, and they’d never breathe a word to you if they did.”

“But you can’t go back to your sources and ask more questions? Or start poking around somewhere else?”

“If we’re going to do this, it will have to be my way.”

Winter heard sounds all around him again, as if the world could no longer hold its breath.

“Believe me,” Frankie said. “This isn’t anything I want to see in my city or my industry. But people start getting nervous when the police barge in and disturb our peaceful lives, not to mention the lives of our law-abiding customers.”

“And someone can die in the meantime,” Macdonald said.

“That’s less likely to happen if you let me take care of it.”

“I need some cold facts by tomorrow.”

“As soon as I can.”

“Tomorrow.” Macdonald turned to Winter. “Any questions, Erik?”

“These movies you were just talking about-they aren’t shown in Soho theaters, I assume.”

Frankie didn’t answer.

“They’re for private consumption,” Winter said.

“That’s correct.”

“Just be careful.”

“Thank you, O Great White Savior.” Frankie’s teeth sparkled. “Your assistance is humbly appreciated.”

Macdonald saw the embarrassed look on Winter’s face, but Frankie held his smile.

“How about some of that tea you mentioned?” Macdonald said.

“I have the Scottish kind, extract of dried oats.”

“Yummy.”

They separated at Piccadilly. Macdonald walked down to the underground and Winter looped back west past Charing Cross Road and continued half a block to 180 Shaftesbury Avenue, Ray’s Jazz Shop. He’d been coming here since he was a teenager. If there was an album you couldn’t find anywhere else, it would definitely be here.

Winter took in the walls, the old LP covers-dust, ink, brittle paper-a wispy, sweet-and-sour odor from the vinyl inside.

There were more CD racks than the last time he had been here, but the place was identical otherwise. The young black clerk behind the counter in the middle of the room put on an album. It was New York Eye and Ear Control again, sweeping back over him like an erotic memory.

He had also heard it in the walls of the hotel room where Per was killed. Not the kind of music you run across every day, he told the clerk.

“There aren’t many copies left.” The clerk straightened his dark glasses. “We sell them as fast as they come in.”

“I seem to have lost mine.”

“Then you’re in luck.”

“I’m here all the way from Sweden, and this is my reward.”

“As far as I can remember, we’ve had only one other copy the past few weeks, and somebody else from Scandinavia snapped it up.”

“Really?”

“It’s hard to mistake the accent. I actually lived in Stockholm for a while, so I always recognize it straightaway. I had a girlfriend there.” He smiled. “But it doesn’t really show when you talk.”

“That’s because I’m a perfectionist,” Winter said. It’s because you’re such a damn snob, he told himself.

“Sounds like you’ve come to the right place. Scandinavians are all in love with this album.”

“Is that right?”

“That’s what the other guy said, anyway.”

“He did?”

“If a blue-eyed Scandinavian walks in, play it for him and you’ve got yourself a sale, he said.”

“Interesting.”

“Or he’ll just come in and ask for it right off the bat, he said.”

Winter decided to buy the album, plus the Julian Argüelles Quartet’s latest, Django Bates’s Human Chain and some other modern British jazz. The CDs became heavier as he carried them around the store.