Known to Evil

56

Leonid?" my wife of twenty-three years said.

She was standing at the door of my den, soon to be Gordo's sanatorium. I was sitting on the daybed, staring at the floor.

"Yeah, babe?"

"What happened to your face?"

"Nothing."

She crossed the threshold dressed in a plush purple nightgown. I gestured and she sat down next to me.

"Does it have to do with Dimitri?"

"No. He's fine. I got an e-mail from Twill. They're both down in Philly for a day or two more. Don't worry. He'll be home when I said."

My voice was thick. Night had come and my plans were made-for better or for worse.

Angelique had called at four-thirty, as planned. Mardi patched the call through to me and I told my client that I had found Shell and planned to meet with him the next day. That seemed to satisfy her for the moment.

"What's wrong?" Katrina asked.

"I wish that there was some kind of guy I could hire. Some detective who I could just give a list of all my problems-Gordo and Twill, a misspent life and… and everything else."

"You can talk to me." She even put a hand on mine.

I looked at her, wondering if I would mention her young lover, if she could read the knowledge in my eyes.

"Thanks for letting me bring Gordo here," I said.

"The children love him."

I looked down again.

"Come to bed, Leonid."

"You go on, Katrina. I have to think. I got a big day tomorrow and everything has to go just right."

A moment passed and then another. Katrina stood up and walked away. The wind was whistling outside the windows of my den. The nights were getting longer.

WHERE'S THAT OTHER SUIT? Lucy had asked when she was pulling down the zipper of my pants.

I hate it, I'd said, holding my breath after.

I thought it was kinda cool.

So I donned the ochre suit before leaving the house. I got my car out of the garage and headed for Long Island City at six the next morning.

She was on a lower floor of a Best Western, number sixteen. One of the many benefits of Bug's expertise was my being able to hack into almost any database-including the occupancy floor plans for almost any chain hotel.

I knocked and waited, knocked again. I was just getting nervous when she opened the door. Her dress was a fluid mixture of cranberry and blueberry hues. Her feet were bare.

"Mr. McGill?"

"Hi."

"What happened to your face?"

"It's a special interrogation technique. I beat myself until my prisoner can't take it anymore and has to tell me what I want to know."

I walked in, pushing the door only enough to make room for my bulk.

"How did you know where I was?" she asked.

I sat on the bed heavily. My face and left arm ached, and I hadn't been to sleep in well over twenty-four hours.

"The reason you did well to hire me," I said. "All I had to do was trace the expenditures on the card and I found this place."

"But how did you find my room?"

"Trade secret."

"Do you have news?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"I found a guy who has all the answers. We just have to go see him and everything will be cleared up."

"I don't know if I should go with you," she said. "I called John last night and he said that you can't just trust somebody that you meet in a coffee shop."

"You shouldn't have called your boyfriend. Call could have been traced. And not just somebody-a private detective, like me, who's good enough to know that your real name is Angelique Tara Lear and that you, against all odds, stabbed and killed an armed assassin in your friend Wanda Soa's apartment."

Angie backed away from me, toward the door.

"Look, kid," I said. "If I wanted to grab you or hurt you I wouldn't be sitting here. I told you that I'd figure out what happened, and I have. But in order to explain it to you, and to get you out of trouble, I have to bring you to an office in lower Manhattan. Come with me and you can go back to your old life."

"I'm afraid."

"Nothing wrong with fear. It keeps the eyes open and your feet ready to run."

For some reason this made her smile.

"WE NEED TO GET a few things straight before we talk to this guy," I said when we were headed east on the BQE.

"What?"

"The man who killed Wanda was named Adolph Pressman."

Angie turned from me and looked out on Brooklyn.

"I know how he found you. I figure that he knocked at Wanda's door with some pretext. You hid and he came in with a gun. Somehow he didn't see you and you went at him with the kitchen knife you were holding for self-defense."

When she turned to me the tears were flowing from her eyes.

"And I murdered my best friend," she cried.

"You have to hear me on this one, Miss Lear," I said in the calmest of deep tones. "That man came to your house with the express intention of killing you. He would have killed Wanda too. You tried to save your life and hers. You did your best. The murderer, the man who killed your friend, is dead."

"But why?" she moaned.

I couldn't help but think that this utterance was the bedrock foundation of all philosophical inquiry.

I gave no answer and she expected none.

"What did you do with the gun?" I asked after the proper interval.

She turned back to the window and fiddled with her hair.

"Come on, now," I said. "If I can figure it out you know the cops can, too."

"I left it at John's. He said that he'd get rid of it the next time he goes out to Long Island."

"Why didn't you toss it into a river?"

"I was afraid that somebody'd see me."

I thought that we should drop by Prince's apartment and pick up the weapon. That was a loose end that needed to be tied. But I was very tired. So much so that any detour seemed beyond comprehension.

WE TOOK THE STAIRS to the seventh floor of the nondescript downtown office building. I walked her down the dowdy green corridor to a door with no signage on it.

"Where are we?" she said.

"The man in this office," I replied, "is a very powerful person who likes his privacy… maybe a little bit too much."

I knocked and waited.

The door clicked open on a bare reception room. There, behind a maroon metal desk, sat a slender, posture-perfect, middle-aged black man wearing silver-rimmed glasses and a thin aqua tie. The lapels of his suit jacket were almost nonexistent. His sensual lips had never smiled, would never do so, for me.

This was Christian Latour, the Important Man's first lines of defense and offence.

"You don't have an appointment, Mr. McGill."

"I bet you that tie he'll see us."

"I see that you've brought Miss Lear," Christian said without even looking at Angie.

"Push the button, Chris."

It wasn't a good idea to bait Latour but I was tired and he was a prig. I liked the guy, but sometimes he had too much attitude.

There was a small black box on left side of Christian's desk. The hole in the top suddenly shone a brilliant blue.

"He will see you," the exasperated receptionist said.

A door behind him opened automatically and I ushered my client through.

THE WALLS WERE ROYAL BLUE and the carpet burgundy. An ever-changing gallery of Renaissance masterpieces on loan from the Met hung along the walls on our way to the Big Man's desk.

Rinaldo was standing in front of the desk (something he had never done for me alone) when we got to him.

"Mr. Brown?" Angie said hesitantly. "Is that you?"

"Hi, Tara." There was an unfamiliar smile on his lips.

"What, what are you doing here?"

"This is my office."

"Are those paintings for real?"

"Why don't we all have a seat?" he offered.

ANGIE WAS LOOKING AROUND the office, seated on a seventeenth- century French chair, while I watched her from my favorite perch: a chair of carved lava stone that was once a pre-Columbian sacrificial altar.

"Mr. McGill?" Alphonse Rinaldo said. If you didn't know him you might not have perceived the threat.

"Sandra Sanderson the Third," I replied.

"Oh."

"Who?" Angie asked.

"Mr. McGill has informed me about your situation," Rinaldo said in a soft and very understanding voice. "He's brought the problem to me and I have resolved to straighten it out. You'll have to excuse us for a few minutes if you don't mind, Tara."

"I don't understand, Mr. Brown. What do you have to do with any of this?"

"I'll explain after Mr. McGill and I confer. Can I get you something to drink or eat while you wait?"

"I haven't had breakfast yet."

Rinaldo picked up the phone and waited a beat. Then, "Mr. Latour, the young lady in my office needs breakfast. Come in and get her order. Mr. McGill and I will be in the library.

"Come with me, Mr. McGill."

He stood and so did I. I followed him to a shadowy corner on the north side of the office. There we passed through a door into a good-sized room that was lined with bookshelves and books. There was a round ash table in the center of the room surrounded by four red-velvet padded chairs.

"Have a seat."

I did so. It felt really good to sit down, like I'd been extremely tired and up to that point unaware of the extent of my exhaustion.

"Nice suit," he said.

"Yeah. My wife bought it for me. I hated it at first. But now it's kind of growing on me."

"I specifically instructed you not to speak to Tara."

"Sometimes a good agent has to make decisions on his own."

"You should have called and asked me before taking such action."

"There was no time to call."

"You should not have brought her to me."

"It's the only place I could be sure that she wouldn't be killed."

That caused him to cross his legs, right over left.

For a moment there my future was in question. I had disobeyed. Even in his weakened position he was that caged lion and I a mere mortal on the wrong side of the bars.

"Give it to me," he said at last.

I laid it all out. The assailants, all six of them, and the threats. I told him about Shell and Leo locked in a cellar in Queens and Sandra Sanderson's obvious involvement. I explained how I decided the only way to approach the problem was to put Angie first as my client.

He listened very closely to my story.

Usually when we spoke he was in some kind of hurry. An ambassador from some foreign nation or an insistent billionaire was in the waiting room in line for a meeting. But that day I could have gone on for hours.

"Your actions have put a strain on our relationship, Leonid," he said when I had finished. "Even if I am pleased with the outcome, I won't be able to put my full trust in you again."

"You mind explaining what it is that we've done here?" I asked. There was no reason to cry over spilt influence.

"You know that I report to City Hall," he said. "Not directly to the mayor but we know each other to speak. A long time ago this, unofficial, position was created in order to keep things running smoothly without bringing attention to the actions necessary. I'm what you might call a chief bureaucrat-with teeth.

"When I first took the position, I was… anxious. My decisions are often taken on my own, without counsel or review. I was uncertain…

"On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I'd go to a diner not far from here. Angelique was seventeen and a waitress at the time. Her first name was too long for the tag so she used Tara as her name. We used to talk. Those conversations relaxed me. She made me feel normal, and I suppose, I fell in love with her a little."

Rinaldo uncrossed his legs, clasped his hands together, sat up straight.

"Not in a sexual way. More like a man feels toward the daughter of a good friend. We had long talks in between her customers. She saw me in an avuncular way, and I, behind the scenes, tried to help her get on with her life.

"She never had a father in the house, and her mother… had problems. So I tapped a college counselor to develop a friendship with her-"

"Iris Lindsay," I said, remembering the gravestone in the photograph.

"Yes. Poor Iris died only a few months ago. She greased the wheels for Tara to get into college, and a few other things. Tara never knew. She didn't even know my real name.

"After she left the diner I had Christian research her background, and Sam Strange's predecessor set up certain monies and benefits for her-with the help of an ever-watchful Ms. Lindsay. Helping Tara made me feel more balanced.

"I've kept up the support, and over time she's developed relationships with certain city employees who answer to this office. I could never tell her what I was doing, but I kept an eye on her. If she filed a complaint about some neighbor or applied for a scholarship or a job, I was usually able to help. I thought I was being discreet, but I guess Sanderson's people found out. They must have kept her report to the police out of the system."

"What would she care about some woman you help out?"

Rinaldo let his hands rise in an uncommon show of helplessness. "Sandra's life has no partitions," he explained. "Her son died a while ago-a rare heart condition that went undiagnosed until the postmortem. Then she got it in her head to erect a building in memoriam for Desmond. Some monolithic downtown waterfront monstrosity. The city was against it. A dozen interest groups were against it. She came to me to try to work a way around the problem. I might have gone along, but this 'memorial' was also going to make her bank over a billion dollars. It seemed to me that she was more concerned over profit than she was for the memory of her son.

"But, like I said, there are no partitions in her life. I knew she was bitter over my refusal to get involved. I didn't realize that she was also a little insane."

"You think she went after Angie for revenge?"

"Either that or to blackmail me. We'll never know now."

"Is Grant's last name Corman?" I asked then.

"Why?"

"A Grant Corman is bodyguarding Sanderson."

"I see."

"That's a very sloppy mistake, if you don't mind my saying so."

"A man is only as good as those who represent him," Alphonse said. "You disobey… and Mr. Strange gets careless."