We Know

Chapter 23

After bucking Sunset traffic for forty nerve-grinding minutes, I pulled up to the Hyatt a hair before seven. I valeted and took in the trendy stretch of the Strip. Next door, people were already lined up for the Comedy Store, and across the street thin women in strappy dresses and chunky heels teetered into SkyBar, laughing into cell phones too small to see.

After the gym I'd returned to the spy shop and bought a magnetometer wand, feeling unsettled at my growing kit of implements of paranoia. In an alley by my building, I'd wanded down the truck as I'd seen Frank do so many times and found, embedded in my visor mirror, the digital transmitter that Wydell had warned me about. I'd taped the bug to the wheel well of a neighbor who always complained to me when our mail got mixed up.

The Hyatt had been tarted up in keeping with its hipster surroundings. I moved swiftly through the slick lobby and mounted the broad steps to the mezzanine. I could feel the pitch of tension rising inside me, prickling my skin. Ducking into the bathroom, I splashed water on my face. A sign by the paper-towel rack urged workers to wash their hands. It was written in Spanish only. I found that presumptuous.

At the right edge of the mezzanine, a glossy sign on an easel announced OPAQUE, A UNIQUE DINING EXPERIENCE. A number of well-dressed couples chattered nervously on modern couches, but no one seemed to be waiting for me. Arty black-and-white photos of L.A. cityscapes punctuated the hall beyond.

I walked over to the podium. A calligraphic sign next to a stainless tray said, Please check cell phones and pagers here, and a number of customers had. A handsome man with a blond goatee glanced up from the reservation book.

"Hi. I'm Nick Horrigan. I'm not sure-"

"Yes, we're expecting you." A firm accent, Swiss or German. "Jocelyn will lead you to your table."

"Lead?"

A heavyset black woman shuffled over, skimming a hand along the wall, smiling a bit too broadly. As she neared, I saw the vacant stare and realized she was blind. The host took my hand and hers and joined them with odd, New Age ceremony. Sliding my hand up her arm to rest on her shoulder, Jocelyn turned away, leading me, and asked, "How are you doing tonight, sir?"

"Baffled." We came around the corner and whisked through a heavy velvet curtain into an unlit, narrow corridor comprised of more curtains stretching up to the high ceiling. The velvet behind us whispered back into place, leaving us in total darkness.

No visible exits, no easy escape route. My worst nightmare.

I broke a sweat, debated a retreat. Jocelyn, of course, took no notice. My concern rising with every step, I followed her through another curtain into what felt like a larger space. My heightened senses picked up faint giggles, rings knocking against wineglasses, the smell of charred meat.

I'd blundered into a conceptual dining experience, an evergreen Los Angeles trend. The crap they dreamed up to justify twenty-dollar cocktails-aquarium-tank floors, fruit-infused shochu bars, scorpion toast served within eyeshot of Santa Monica Airport's private runways. And now darkness. You could slit someone's throat over a glass of Syrah in here and never disrupt the atmospherics.

I balked.

"It'll be worth it," she said, misreading my hesitation and gently tugging me along. "They brought the concept over from Switzerland. They say you won't believe what it does to your taste buds." We shuffled forward past invisible dining tables. "Now, if you need anything, just call for me. Jocelyn, right? Likewise to go to the bathroom. Give me your hand. There you go. This is the edge of your table. This is your chair. You'll find a glass to your right-got it? Bread and salad in front of you. Butter in the dish."

And she was gone.

A small table. For two. Feeling around my place setting, I stared into darkness. I wouldn't have been able to see a gun barrel inches from my nose. A waft of air-conditioning. The tinkle of breaking glass. Behind me a man guffawed and said, "I just spread butter on my thumb." I tried to read the air. Someone was sitting opposite me.

I heard the whir of night-vision goggles autofocusing and felt my heart seize. Being scrutinized when I was blind pitched me up to a whole new level of discomfort. I felt a bizarre urge to cover my face, but instead I braced myself-for his stare, a bullet, a blow to the nose.

"Don't worry," he said. "I won't hurt you."

I tried to gauge the voice. Strong, but nervous. Gravelly from firsthand smoke. Older than me, but not by much. Before I had time to ponder why he was nervous, he said, "Please, take a bite. It is pretty amazing."

The scents around me were especially distinct; of course, I hadn't eaten all day. I tore off a piece of roll. Flaky, warm, hint of anise. Absolutely incredible. "Okay," I said. "Obviously I shouldn't bother asking who you are. But what should I call you?"

"Shallow Throat." He chuckled. "Call me the Voice in the Dark."

"So, Voice, you're a pretty controlling dinner date."

I heard a click, and then he set something on the table.

"Pink-noise generator," I guessed. "You think I'm wired."

"You, the table, the walls."

"The walls?"

I shoveled my fork through the salad. By the time the tines got to my mouth, they were empty. I used my fingers, which somehow made everything taste better. Baby greens with pear slices and some kind of blue cheese. I chased a toasted walnut around the plate.

" Talking concrete,'" he said. "When we speak, we bounce amplitude waves off the walls. The Russians figured out how to embed crystals into concrete, crystals that oscillate with the amplitude waves, throw a signal a hundred fifty yards. It's no-shit stuff-they got it into the U.S. embassies in Moscow and Brussels when they poured the walls. Anyone could be listening to anyone else. At any time." Someone shuffled by. I heard the whir again, and then the Voice said, "He'll be eating quickly."

Jocelyn said, "I'll bring 'em as fast as they come out." She leaned over me. "Done with your salad already? All right, then. I'm gonna reach past your right shoulder. There we go. Now, hang on." She withdrew and returned moments later. "And hot plate coming. Okay, now."

Somehow, miraculously, she filled our water glasses.

The hot scent of steak rose to my face. I pawed around my plate. My fingertips told me that the filet was wrapped in something. Pancetta, maybe. I sawed with a knife, then tore with my fingers, slid a lump past my lips. My workout had left me ravenous. As I chewed, I realized that if I were still scared, I wouldn't be eating. Despite the ominous stage setting, the Voice didn't seem menacing. Just firm and concise.

"I need my money," the Voice said.

"I thought you said you had something / want."

"You only got one part of it."

"One part of what?" I asked.

"Of what he wanted to give you."

"Charlie?"

"So you know his name."

"Just his first name," I said. "What's his last?" My fingertips had moved instinctively to the dimple in my cheek from the explosion. Realizing that the Voice could see me, I lowered my hand.

"That's not important," he said.

"What is?"

"You found the P.O. box?"

I stopped mid-chew. "Yep. I got the photomat slip. When did you pick up my trail?"

"I knew where Charlie's safe house was. I waited for you there. It was the logical first place someone would look. After watching you for a bit, I figured out you needed my help."

"But you didn't know where Charlie had hidden the money. You saw me leaving his place with the rucksack. That's why you broke in to my place last night. To get the money."

"My money," he said.

"You were the one who paid him?"

"He got it for me."

"So that was you in my place last night."

He said, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me. You just pissed me off."

"I intended to help you. Did the P.O. box have whatever you were searching for?"

"You didn't look?"

"I didn't have the key," he said.

"Why didn't you ask me for it?"

"I don't want the key. I want the cash."

"Yeah," I said. "I opened the P.O. box. All it had in it was-"

"Don't tell me." The conversation around us silenced, then slowly started back up. After a time the Voice said, quietly, "Whatever comes with that key, I don't want it."

I pushed the plate away, leaned back in my chair.

Jocelyn was in the vicinity again. "How you doing here?"

"Good, thanks."

She cleared and set down another plate. I sat cross-armed for a few moments before curiosity got the better of me. I stuck my fingers into the plate, licked them. Chocolate profiteroles. Something to the side of the plate was moist and firm. I fished it out of the sauce. Explosion of strawberry. I'd have to bring Induma here someday. If I got the chance. So many dates I'd planned in my head since we'd broken up. All those elaborate fantasies of reconciliation that I never acted on. Rarely did I go to a new restaurant, a garden, an art-house movie that I didn't think about having her with me.

I could hear the Voice breathing, the sound of it bringing my attention back to the situation at hand. "I'll play along," I said. "What's the other part of what Charlie wanted to give me?"

"You got one key. There's another."

"Another key. Okay." I set down my hands angrily. "Forget any keys, or cash, until I know what angle you're coming into this from."

"I knew Charlie."

"Knew him how? Tried to kill him? You're his twin brother? What?"

"I owe something to his memory. Do you know what it means to owe someone? After they're dead?" The voice trembled, ever so slightly, with emotion.

The white noise around us seemed to swell until I could hear each distinct element. "You're his son," I said.

"You're not nearly as clever as you think you are."

"Well, that's bad news," I said, "because I don't strike myself as particularly clever."

"Charlie had a lot of respect for Caruthers," the

Voice said. "He was going to try to help him. He told me he had something Caruthers needed for his election bid."

That Caruthers needed. My stomach sank at the name.

The Voice continued, "Charlie's only fault was…"

"What?"

I could hear the flicks of his fingernails against his scalp, nervously scratching. "He thought he could get money for it," he said.

"Two hundred thousand dollars, maybe," I said.

"Or maybe four. Half up front. Half later. But there was no later."

"Extortion money," I said.

"I suppose some people might consider it that."

"So Caruthers paid him some of the money, then brought down the hammer."

"I don't know who paid," the Voice said. "I don't know what it was. But money was delivered. And then he was killed."

It sounded like he was fed a version of the truth from Charlie, but was that version correct? The Voice had said he didn't want whatever came with that key; he'd been kept insulated from the hard facts, which made it hard to untangle reality from conjecture. But everything he'd told me pointed to Caruthers. Which, in turn, pointed to Frank.

I nudged the plate away. My mouth was dry. "How was Frank Durant mixed up in all this?" I asked.

"Frank Durant? Hell if I know. I do know that he and Charlie went back to the old days. Thick as thieves, those two."

His choice of wording did not seem accidental. In light of the night-vision goggles, I tried to keep my face impassive, but it was a struggle.

Fortunately, the Voice didn't seem to notice. He continued, "Charlie did this for me, but it turned into more. He wanted to do what was right. He wanted whatever he had to be made public."

"But his conscience only kicked in once he got double-crossed by Caruthers's buyers," I said sardonically. No response from the darkness. I added, "And you won't see it through."

"I can't. I can't be seen. It's not safe for me right now. This is all… It's all my fault."

"How are they into you?" I asked. Again no answer. I said, "So you have the other piece."

"No. Just the other key. There's another P.O. box, another item. He kept them separate. Insurance. But you can't carry insurance against these people."

"How do I get the key?"

"We swap," he said. "The money for the key."

"When?"

"Soon. I had to see if I could trust you first."

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"How are you reachable?" I asked.

"I'm not."

Jocelyn came back. "Bet you're done with that dessert?"

I waited patiently while she cleared, humming to herself. Then she said, "I'll be back in a minute with some coffee."

I waited for her footsteps to fade, and then I said, "So how do we do this? Voice? Voice?"

But I was alone, talking to the darkness.