When the Thrill Is Gone

28

In the morning I awoke next to Katrina. She was sleeping peacefully. Looking at her, I knew that she was deep into her affair, and having such a good time that her usual restlessness was quelled. This didn’t bother me. Katrina and I were connected in ways that I couldn’t explain if I wanted to. We didn’t love each other, not in the marital sense. Our proximity and the children made us family. I wasn’t her brass ring, but the ride was over and I was the best bet on a field of nags.

I dressed quickly and was almost out the door when she said, “Leonid?”

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t seen much of you lately.” She sat up in the bed and stretched languorously.

I met Katrina in her springtime. She was beautiful in a way that only Scandinavians can be. She had hair of blond fire and skin the color of the milk that gods drank before shaking mountains. That was a long time ago, and though she was no longer that stunning youth, her beauty was experiencing a kind of Indian summer, a resurgence that even I could see — and feel.

“You been goin’ out with your friends,” I said.

“I miss you.”

“I’m right here.”

“Can we have a special dinner tonight?”

“Sure. That’d be great. I’m in the middle of a case, but I’ll try my best to get a few hours for dinner.”

She took a deep breath and sighed, lay back in the bed, and closed her eyes.

I liked her very much right then. Live long enough and you can learn to appreciate just about anything.

Mardi was already at her desk at 8:09, when I got in. She wore a medium-gray cotton dress that, I knew from previous days, came down to the middle of her calves. There was a blue stone depending from a silver chain around her neck.

She was organizing and reorganizing her desk, and my life.

“Good morning, Mr. McGill,” she said, standing up.

Her pale blue eyes scoped out my mood. It was hard for her that morning because what I mostly felt was confused resignation.

I walked up to the desk and looked at her papers. Mardi wrote in purple ink. It was one of the few ways she held on to a decimated childhood and so I didn’t complain.

“You want me to run down and get you some coffee?” she asked.

“How’s Marly?” I asked. That was the receptionist’s younger sister, the reason she and Twill had planned to murder her father.

“Fine,” Mardi said with a smile. “She’s going into sixth grade in September. She wants new clothes.”

“We could all go shopping together one Saturday if you want.”

“You’ll spoil her,” the nineteen-year-old woman said.

“That’s what girl children are for.”

“Should I go get you that coffee?”

“No. Sit down. I need to talk to you.”

She lowered into her office chair, the same chair I once used to lay low the man-monster Willie Sanderson. I took her visitor’s seat, hunching forward to put my elbows on my knees.

“What do you think about Iran?” I asked.

“He’s nice.”

“You know that’s not what I’m askin’ you. And even if he was nice, that’s probably the least important thing about him.”

“Are you going to hire him?” she asked.

“What makes you think that?”

“You never let anybody else sit at one of our desks before.”

Our.

“He’s had a hard life, M. Maybe harder than he deserves.”

The last few words registered in her pale eyes.

“You’re a good man, Mr. McGill,” she said and I couldn’t help feeling that she had seen inside my head and understood that I had been a party to Iran’s downfall.

“It’s not about me,” I said. “I like the kid. I think he’s got potential.”

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s loyal and knows more than people might think. He’d probably be pretty brave but not like you or Twill. Not many people can be like that.”

She wasn’t looking for a raise or job security. I had stepped in and kept her and my son from becoming murderers. I’d given her a job when she didn’t know what else to do... And, of course, I made certain that her rapist father was in prison and would never harm another child.

I shook my head and grinned, stood up, and said, “Here I am the man of secrets and I got Dodona answering my phones.”

“Who’s that?”

“Look her up.”

It was time to get down to business.

As soon as I was behind my desk I picked up the phone and dialed a newly memorized phone number.

“Mr. Tyler’s line,” Phil, the pastel aide, said.

“Leonid McGill for Mr. Tyler.”

“He’s not in.”

“Find him and get him on a phone, wherever he is.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t do that.”

“I have important information that he hired me to find.”

“Hold on.”

In the silence I wondered if I should just take the money and forget about artists and billionaires. But then I remembered those children. I’d made them a promise.

“Mr. McGill,” Phil said. “You’re on the line with Mr. Pelham.”

“Hello,” the white-on-white man said over a line strained with crackling electric static.

“I asked to speak with Mr. Tyler,” I said.

“He’s indisposed.”

“I can wait until he gets out of the john.”

“Mr. McGill,” Pelham, the soul of patience, said. “Cyril is out of the country and I am at a meeting of one of his boards in Denver. Neither of us can do much for you at the moment. So... if you have information, please pass it along.”

“My business is with your boss. It would be unprofessional to pass along private communications.”

“Have you heard from Chrystal?”

“I can only tell Mr. Tyler that.”

“He has given me the authority to debrief you.”

“First I heard of it.”

“I am his lawyer.”

“And I’m his investigator. So if he wants what I got to give he will have to call me.”

I hung up the phone, wondering at Tyler’s lines of communication. Pelham most likely knew about the complaint lodged against me with the NYPD. He was almost certainly the one who filed the grievance. But he gave no inkling of their ploy.

What were they up to?

The intercom buzzed then.

“Yes, Mardi?”

“There’s a Patrick O’Hearn here to see you, sir.”

In the background I could hear a man’s voice mumbling.

Then Mardi added, “He says to tell you that it’s Old Sham.”

I took a deep breath filled with pedestrian uncertainty. I had no desire to speak with Old Sham.

Then I exhaled the words “Send him down.”