Need You Now

39

L illy and I felt a blast of the cold winter night as Andie opened the door and left the Tearrific café. I watched through the plate glass window, and my gaze followed her across narrow Mott Street. She disappeared into the darkness, but I noticed the lighted red awning above the Fong Inn, which in bold white letters advertised P UTO and H OT T AO. Puto is a steamed rice cake, but under my rough understanding of Spanish slang and Chinese menus, linking it with “hot tao” created the literal multilingual equivalent of “way-hot male prostitute.” Talk about lost in translation.

“What are you looking at?” asked Lilly.

I didn’t even attempt an explanation. “Nothing,” I said. “What did you want to tell me?”

Lilly sat up straight, preparing her words. “You heard me tell Agent Henning that my source claims to be protecting me, but it goes further than that.”

“You mean all the lovesick remarks he makes?”

“No, not that. I think Henning’s take on that is probably right: he’s playing to a profile stereotype just to confuse me. What I mean is that he’s not just protecting me: he blames you-wants to blame you for everything that happened at the bank. And he cautions me to keep my distance from you so that the blame doesn’t spill over to me.”

“Strange as that sounds, the notion of putting distance between us actually jibes with the warning I got in the park. The guy who attacked me told me to stay away from you.”

“Basically he thinks that I got used. First by Gerry Collins. Then by you.”

It was awkward to be among the “users,” but it suddenly turned into one of those “lightbulb” moments. “Your source leaked the Treasury memo,” I said, energized by the realization.

“What?”

“Robledo had to have gotten that memo from someone in Treasury. Your source is a former government agent. He leaked the Treasury memo, and Robledo showed it to you. Your source is the one who put you on Robledo’s radar.”

“But if he’s the one who put me in danger, why would he be protecting me?”

“He’s got your back,” I said, as things suddenly came clear to me.

“What does that mean?”

“My bet is that he leaked the Treasury memo for some other purpose-to hurt somebody else. Putting you in danger wasn’t his intention. Protecting you is what he’s all about right now.”

“I don’t know.”

“Think about it. Clearly, he doesn’t believe the statement in the memo about your being the best lead on the Cushman money. He called Collins a user. Now your source thinks I know where the money is, and he says I’m using you to get there. In his eyes, I’m as bad as Gerry Collins.”

“I still don’t see how that adds up to his having my back.”

“He was an undercover agent who ended up shot. He got used on the front end of Operation BAQ, just like you did. He’s out to punish everyone who was behind Operation BAQ-the users. Leaking the Treasury memo was part of a bigger agenda. Putting you in danger wasn’t. Collins got his punishment. He’s here to make sure I get mine. He wants to make sure you don’t get used in the process. He’s not in love with you. He’s got your back.”

I could almost see her head spinning. “Give me that again,” she said. “You’re saying Collins was part of Operation BAQ?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Her expression soured. “I knew Gerry. He was definitely not an FBI agent.”

“Of course not. He was a scumbag who fed billions of dollars to the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. I can easily see a situation where someone in the FBI or Treasury came to him and gave him the option of going to jail for the rest of his life or playing along with Operation BAQ-whatever it is.”

Lilly was suddenly with me. “That would be just like Gerry. Cut a deal, save himself.”

“Save himself in spades. I’m betting that the federal agent assigned to handle Collins was told to take the bullet himself before he let Collins go down-before he let Operation BAQ fail. Collins bought himself a human shield. And now that shield is a rogue agent who thinks that he got used by his own government, who thinks that I’m using you.”

Lilly’s expression went cold, but it wasn’t because she disagreed with me. “That’s why he said it’s up to me and him to decide…”

“Decide what?”

“Whether you live or die.”

“He actually used those words?”

Lilly nodded. She reached across the table and held my hand. “What are we going to do?”

I withdrew my hand and poured more tea. “Stay right here,” I said, “until I’m damn sure you’ve decided I should live.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I breathed in the steam from my tea, catching her eye over the brim of my cup. “When did he tell you this?”

“Yesterday afternoon, when he listed all the lies you’d told me.”

“Alleged lies,” I said.

“Lies,” she said.

“Okay, lies. But, shit, Lilly. The guy says it’s up to you to decide if I live or die, and you’re telling me now?”

“It’s sounds horrible when you say it that way, but even as mad and hurt as I was, I literally was dialing your number when Barber pulled up in his limo and told me to get into the car. I was really scared, and in no position to call you. An hour later you were in his office, and he was telling us to look through each other’s files for the smoking gun. I don’t have to tell you everything that’s happened since then. It’s been crazy, and I’m sorry it’s taken us this long to have this conversation, but…”

“But what?”

“Up until we had this last conversation with Andie Henning, you were the only person sitting at this table who had an FBI agent looking out for you.”

“I’ve been trying to make that happen,” I said.

“I’ve been trying, too, damn it. But it’s been just me .”

I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice: she really had been trying. And she’d raised a valid point. I had Andie. I had Connie. I’d even had Evan for a while. Lilly had no one.

“Patrick, we can let this get ugly and turn against each other. But we’ve both made mistakes. Please, can we just move forward?”

I still wished that she had told me sooner, but it was a fair statement that we’d both made mistakes-and the real truth was, the only one who had affirmatively lied to the other was me.

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” I said.

“Really, Patrick. What are we going to do?”

The tea and our talk had cleared my thoughts. I took my phone from my pocket and removed the battery.

“What are you doing?” asked Lilly.

“Deactivating my phone to make sure I don’t use it before a tech expert can tell me what spyware is on it. I suggest you do the same with yours.”

“I suppose that’s a reasonable assumption-that it’s bugged.”

“Beyond reasonable,” I said. “Right here, right now, you and I are going to burn one indisputable fact into our brains: Evan Hunt was shot in the head fifteen minutes after he called and told me that he had cracked the code on an encrypted memorandum about BAQ.”

“Okay. And exactly what does that tell us?”

“It tells us somebody was listening to that conversation. It tells us that we need to figure out what Operation BAQ is, and not end up like Evan Hunt.”

“Does that mean we should take up Agent Henning on her offer to help us? You want to ‘get on board’ with her, as she put it?”

I leaned closer, hoping that it truly mattered what either one of us thought-wondering if either one of us had any real control.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I said.